


Daily Life - 10 Years Later

by WaferBiscuits



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Angst, Animal Death, Cancer, Depression, Dissociation, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, Future Foundation (Dangan Ronpa), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Medical Procedures, Nightmares, Old Married Couple, Post-Game(s), Slice of Life, Taxidermy, Trans Hinata Hajime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-14 01:21:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 22,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29411142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaferBiscuits/pseuds/WaferBiscuits
Summary: In which Nagito leaves the oven on and Hajime is roped into overtime telework. Adulthood is hard. Marriage is harder. They both try their best, but sometimes the stress just gets to be too much. (Finished, but always updating with extra content)
Relationships: Hinata Hajime/Komaeda Nagito
Comments: 60
Kudos: 193





	1. I: Nagito

Nagito didn’t quite know why he felt the need to go to the grocery store at 7AM on a Saturday.

It wasn’t like he desperately needed anything. Maybe a couple of odds and ends. They were running low on almond milk, sure, and the margarine only had a couple knife scrapes worth left, but it wasn’t like he had to slip out in the dead of morning and drift out the driveway like he was making a getaway from his own apartment.

He had woken up sweating in his boxers an hour earlier. Another nightmare. It wasn’t something he was a stranger to, but his night terrors always made him feel foggy.

He’d forget things like what year it was, how many years he’d been married, or wonder why he didn’t feel the heavy weight of metal clamped around his neck. He’d look at his prosthetic hand and wonder how he’d gotten it and when before things would finally fall back into place and leave him feeling like there was a hollow pit in his stomach.

Hajime was snoring away in a cocoon of sheets, his arms flung off to his sides in a bizarre feat of contortion that Nagito just knew would have an end result of muscle cramping.

Slowly, using only his right hand, Nagito adjusted Hajime’s arms to rest more naturally at his sides. He didn’t want the cold metal of his prosthetic to freeze Hajime’s skin and wake him up.

Satisfied, Nagito tip toed to the kitchen to heat some water on the stove and fix a tumbler of cheap black Lipton tea. He threw on some clothes, grabbed his set of keys, and slipped out the front door. He didn’t want to wake up Hajime, not with how hard it was for him to get to sleep in the first place.

Nagito could have either risked making too much noise in the living room or he could find an excuse to leave the house and knock out errands. Maybe the pharmacy had some refills to pick up, either his own maintenance therapy meds or Hajime’s hormones.

So he went to the pharmacy first and picked up a batch of syringes that Hajime had gotten on backorder ages ago. Nagito was pleased. He knew how anxious Hajime had been about running out. Not the greatest of weekend surprises, but good enough.

Nagito checked his time when he got back to the car. Going to the pharmacy had only killed about fifteen minutes. Groceries, then. That would eat up a good chunk of time for sure, even if the store itself was just down the road.

Apart from the stockers and a couple of yawning cashiers, there were only a few other people actually shopping and Nagito was the only one under the age of sixty. It was pretty quiet if you didn’t count the harsh fluorescents buzzing and the tinny top 40 music. It made Nagito feel disoriented and a little unsettled.

For the purpose of making himself take up as little space as possible, he opted to take a basket instead of a cart. He hated shopping carts. They made him feel noticed in the worst way.

Feeling listless and not even sure of what to actually get, Nagito went for the baking aisle first. Did they need flour? Of course he hadn’t had the sense to peek in the pantry before leaving home.

Nagito felt foolish looking at the cake mix boxes. He didn’t know if there was any at home, but maybe it’d be a good idea to grab one on the safe side. It wasn’t even that Nagito wanted it. He only bought them because Hajime was stubborn and always adamantly insisted that they make boxed cake to mark a new month that Nagito was successfully on remission. It was a ritual entirely fueled by Hajime’s anxiety, and it did nothing but make Nagito feel horribly guilty.

Thinking of Hajime jogged Nagito’s memory and made him jolt. He set the basket on the floor and took his phone out. He had forgotten to bother to text where he was. Some spouse he was.

Thankfully, Hajime was probably still asleep judging by the lack of notifications. Nagito didn’t really text anyone other his husband. That was Hajime’s job. He was the one who kept up with the other ex-remnants and organized the occasional meet-ups that had just gotten more and more infrequent (and awkward) the older they all got.

Nagito tapped out a message. He had always been a bit slow when it came to texting. It came from only having one hand to be able to do it with.

‘ _good morning Haji did you sleep well? I am at the store didn’t want to wake you up. let me know if you need anything k love you’_

He hit the send button and took the basket back up. After a moment’s thought, he grabbed a box of ready mix yellow sheet cake. It was one of the few flavors that they both liked, and it was never a bad idea to get extras of things like that. Nagito couldn’t even remember when he’d have his next monthly remission milestone. Next week, maybe? Hajime was the one who kept track of it.

Nagito ambled through the other aisles but didn’t pick anything else up until he got to the cold section. Almond milk. Yes. That was always something they burned through pretty fast. He took a carton and placed it in the basket. His arm shivered under the weight of it.

The idea of buying only boxed cake mix and milk depressed him, so he walked to the pasta section and took a few boxes at random. He went for a box of bagged tea for good measure.

His phone buzzed. Nagito dipped into the nearest aisle. He only had to glance at the caller ID before answering. “You’re up already?”

The voice on the other end of the line heaved a sigh. “Yeah. I’m up.”

After three years of dating and six years of marriage, Nagito had developed a kind of sixth sense for being able to tell when Hajime was annoyed at something. It was all in how he breathed. Long exhales punctuated by carefully controlled monotone lies, that was how Hajime handled his anger.

Nagito could tell something was up. He set the shopping basket back on the ground and fiddled at the hem of his jacket. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “I’m sorry, I hope your phone was on silent – “

Hajime cut him off. “No, no, not that. It’s not a big deal. Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay, well, it’s definitely something and if you don’t tell me what it is I’m gonna worry,” Nagito said. He wasn’t able to help sounding clipped. “Otherwise, why call? Check mate, Hajime.”

“Okay, fine.” Hajime bit back. “You left the oven on again. Happy?”

“Oh…” Nagito’s shoulders dropped. So that’s what it was. Despite taking the effort to leave home without causing trouble, he still found a way to mess up. How typical. “Um…”

“Hey,” said Hajime, “I’m not mad at you, okay? I just wish you’d use the water heater. It’s right next to the burners for a reason and it’s got that automatic shut off feature in case you forget to turn it off.”

“It’s not the same, though.” Nagito huffed. “And it’s faster.”

Hajime took a deep breath. Nagito could picture him doing that thing where he pinched the bridge of his nose and shut his eyes. “You know, _honey_ ,” he said, practically hissing the endearment, “most people would be happy to have their water heat up faster. And how is it not the same? It’s water.”

“I don’t des – “

“Nope. No. Stop that. You deserve to have quickly heated hot water.”

Nagito would have begged to differ, but he knew it was a moot point to bother arguing. Best just to keep it in his head. “Fine.”

“Look, how about you finish up whatever you’re doing and come home, okay?” Hajime’s voice softened.

“Okay.” Nagito glanced back down at the basket. “Do you need anything?”

Hajime hummed in thought. “Maybe some cake mix. I think we’re out and it’ll be fourteen months on Monday.”

“I got some already. That soon, though?”

“Yeah.” Hajime was quiet for a moment. “You know why that’s a big deal, right?”

Nagito honestly didn’t know. Maybe there was some embarrassment to be had that he didn’t pay that much attention to his own medical problems. He had always chalked his baffling survival up to his luck, for better or worse.

If he didn’t have Hajime around, he wouldn’t bother with maintenance therapy in the first place, let alone keep up with a regular oncologist on a biweekly basis. It was all too much work for something he had just assumed was out of his control.

He must have been quiet for a bit too long. Hajime broke the silence. “Fourteen months will be the longest you’ve been on remission, and almost two years since you went out of palliative care.”

“Oh.” Nagito didn’t really know what to say to that. He knew it meant a lot to Hajime, though, so he tried to think of something worth saying that would meet the gravitas that was expected of him. A half-hearted “that’s great” was all he could muster up.

Hajime sighed, clearly a little resigned. “Come on home, okay? You want some coffee?”

“Sure. I got milk.” Nagito took the basket back up. “Oh, and I stopped by the pharmacy earlier. They finally got your needles in.”

“Oh, really? God, took them long enough, huh? Thanks for grabbing them for me.”

Nagito could hear the smile in his husband’s voice, and that made him feel a little bit better. “I’ll get this stuff and be home soon.”

“Alright. Drive safe. I love you.”

“Love you, too.” Nagito hung up, pocketed his phone, and went for the nearest check-out.

He’d go home, maybe get another tongue lashing for pulling another fire hazard stunt, but it would turn out alright in the end.

It always did.


	2. II: Hajime

Hajime liked making coffee. It wasn’t because he was good at it. He was ‘good’ at everything, after all. Rather, the process of making coffee had margins of error that made it difficult. A good cup of coffee could turn bad in the blink of an eye from any number of tiny mistakes.

And honestly, Hajime loved making mistakes. Mistakes made him feel more human and less, well, Kamakura.

This morning, however, Hajime didn’t really feel like putting his A-game in. Most days he’d opt for using the French press. It made for a smoother finish. Today he could only be bothered to toss a filter in the fossilized drip pot that he’d had for the better part of a decade.

With the pot switched on, he shuffled back to the bedroom and fished around in a drawer for a random shirt to wear along with his boxers. He settled for a ratty Future Foundation tee he had gotten during an internship several years back.

He slipped it on and went for the bathroom, but not before setting his phone on his nightstand. Getting back on the rails of a daily routine, that would set him straight.

Hajime took a long look at himself in the mirror.

Okay, so maybe he _was_ pissed at Nagito after all. Just a little. He could admit that to himself, just not to Nagito. Never to Nagito. No way. There wouldn’t be any point in it and Hajime had learned a long time ago that he had to pick his battles.

His own reflection stared back at him, red and green eyes blinking slowly. “It’s not about the stove, idiot,” he muttered.

Sure, finding the burner left on had been annoying, but it wasn’t that big of an issue. It was more that Nagito seemed to have a lifelong dedication to making things as difficult as possible for himself, despite Hajime’s numerous attempts to steer him back on course.

It had gotten leagues better over the years, but sometimes little things like Nagito refusing to use an appliance because it was ‘more convenient than he deserved’ made Hajime feel like that there hadn’t been any progress made in the first place. It was discouraging.

And then there was the fact that Nagito had gotten up as early as he had, something that he _never_ did unless there were nightmares involved. That only meant that he had deliberately chosen to slink out of the house instead of wake up Hajime for emotional support. The thought made Hajime feel a familiar mix of frustration and ineptitude.

Hajime kept his contact lens case next to the sink. He only wore a colored one to disguise his heterochromia. He didn’t like people commenting on it, especially random strangers. It brought up too many bad memories. Better to hide it.

He splashed some cold water on his face and ran his fingers through his choppy hair. He didn’t bother putting in the contact today, not with a full day’s schedule of doing fuck-all and staying inside.

His phone was pinging from the bedroom. After toweling off, Hajime went for it and cringed at the notification.

‘ _Hi, Hinata. Are you free? I’m sorry for the short notice, especially on a weekend, but please call when you get this. Thank you. Hope you’re well.’_

“Oh, fuck me.” Hajime groaned.

Only one person had a texting style that stilted and formal. Makoto.

Whatever. Get it over with.

As Hajime pressed to dial Makoto’s number, he could hear the echo of the front door opening, the faint jingling of keys, and Nagito’s voice straining to call out that he was home.

And, of course, Makoto always answered the phone on the first ring.

“Hi, Hinata. Sorry about this.” Makoto sounded like he hadn’t slept, which wasn’t unusual, but still. “I don’t know who else to call.”

“No, it’s fine. What’s going on?” Hajime tried to make himself sound nonchalant.

He went for the kitchen and found Nagito rummaging in the fridge, probably trying to find the last sliver of shelf space. They really needed to purge the leftovers.

Nagito glanced up. “Oh, Hajime! There yo –“ he cut himself off at seeing Hajime on the phone. Wincing, he mouthed a ‘sorry’ and turned back to the fridge.

“Hang on a sec for me, Naegi.” Hajime didn’t wait for a reply before muting the call. He stepped over to Nagito, slipped an arm around his bony waist and leaned in to kiss the corner of his lips. “Sorry, he called just as you came in. Hopefully you didn’t get into another fender bender on your way back?”

“No, but I did have to pay cash.” Nagito pressed himself into the touch and nearly gave Hajime a mouthful of frizzy white hair. He kept his hands in the fridge to swap around half-empty bottles of condiments, evidently to make room for a quart of almond milk sitting on the floor. “The register’s internet shut down when I went to check out.”

“Of course it did.” Hajime glanced back at his phone to make sure Makoto hadn’t hung up on him. “Let me finish this and I’ll help, okay?”

Nagito hummed. “Tell my luck colleague I said hello.” He turned to peck Hajime’s forehead before focusing back on a hopeless game of Fridge Tetris.

Reluctantly, Hajime squeezed Nagito’s waist before letting go. He unmuted the call. “Sorry about that, Naegi.”

It took a few seconds for Makoto to reply. He must have been absorbed in something else. “That’s okay. I forwarded you a couple of emails. Can you log in?”

Hajime held back a sigh. “It’ll take a few minutes to boot up my laptop. What’s going on, anyway?” He poked Nagito’s shoulder to get his attention and theatrically mimed cocking a gun at himself.

Nagito snorted. Hajime could tell his husband was just humoring him, but it was something. That was enough.

He kept his work laptop shoved under the living room coffee table, out of sight and out of mind. Hajime propped up his phone in the crook of his neck as he bent to pick it up and unlatch it.

Makoto was chattering in his ear. “We’ve got a huge press release dropping on the site Monday morning that needs a fact check and copy editing. I don’t have time to do it and if it’s not prepped by five Byakuya might actually kill me. Never mind the fact that he wants me to get all this other stuff done before noon.”

Hajime sat back on the couch and propped up the computer on his lap. “You need me to do overtime?” he asked. It was what he had expected. Makoto didn’t really have a life outside of the Future Foundation these days. “Just one document?”

“Just one. I’ve already gotten the go-ahead from Byakuya to give you time and a half for a lot longer than it’ll probably take for you to get it done.”

“You all don’t have to do that.” Polite niceties aside, Hajime couldn’t help but feel a little cynical. Byakuya knew full well that he didn’t have to sweeten the deal. The threat of getting reprimanded was too much of a scare factor for Hajime to even consider turning down extra work assignments.

Hajime would have cut ties with the Future Foundation years ago if he had the option. In truth, he hated it. He hated working for an organization that inevitably made him relive trauma that he would have otherwise moved past by now. It was made even worse by the fact that he could do, quite literally, anything that needed to be done. The Izuru side of him saw to that.

Broken webpage? Yessir. Need some graphic design for the holiday donation drive? You got it, ma’am. The server’s down? On it, bucko.

His official title was Chief Information Officer, but really, Hajime was more of a glorified gofer.

Byakuya and Makoto, for all of their goodwill, had to know that Hajime only kept on with the Foundation for the pay and benefits, specifically the health insurance. It had paid for his top surgery years back, but more importantly, it covered the majority of Nagito’s extensive medical bills.

“Hinata?”

“Sorry, Naegi.” Hajime shook his head. He had been staring at his log-in screen. “I’m almost in. Oh, Nagito said hi, by the way.” He typed in his password, a sloppy combination of Nagito’s birthday along with his favorite soccer team.

“Hi, Komaeda!” Makoto chirped.

“Sorry, you’re not on speaker, but I’ll let him know.” Hajime opened up his outlook account.

“How’s he doing?” asked Makoto. The question was asked in that syrupy saccharine sympathy-bloated tone of voice that always set Hajime on the precipice to becoming truly pissed off. He had the sudden impulse to either lodge his forehead straight into his monitor or tell Makoto that he should mind his own fucking business.

Still, he knew how to play civil. “He’s fine.”

Either Makoto was dense or Hajime’s clipped reply hadn’t been fully captured over the phone line. “Is he still working part-time?” he asked.

Hajime pinched the bridge of his nose and shut his eyes. “No. That didn’t work out.” He hoped he wasn’t loud enough for Nagito to hear him from the kitchen.

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.” More platitudes under a veneer of disappointment that made Hajime want to kick Makoto’s teeth in.

It ‘didn’t work out’ because of the usual repertoire of reasons that Nagito’s fleeting bouts of employment ‘didn’t work out’. Nagito’s options were already limited enough by his abysmal health and low stamina. He couldn’t stand for more than a couple hours at a time and most desk work required a fabled ‘5 years minimum professional experience’.

When he did get work, it was really only a matter of time before the inevitable happened. Either Nagito would have to call out one too many times or something would happen during a shift that would push a supervisor over the edge, usually a freak accident. Bad luck.

It was a huge sore spot for Nagito’s already rock bottom sense of self-worth. He didn’t even really ‘need’ to work. He got disability checks that went straight into rent after his once massive inheritance had dried up into car payments, insurance, take your pick.

Hajime could carry the weight of financial responsibility for the both of them. He didn’t mind, not really, even if it meant keeping up with the Future Foundation. He could shoulder it.

“Uh, Hinata?”

“Huh? Oh, sorry. Sorry. Yeah. Sorry, Naegi.” Hajime rubbed at his forehead, right over a long-faded scar. “I’m looking at my inbox. Is it this googledoc link you sent?”

“Yeah… you sure you’re up to it? It’s really fine if you can’t. I can have the intern help me out with it.”

“I’ll be fine once I get some coffee.” Thank god he had put the drip pot on. “You need me to pass it by you once I’m done?”

“Nah, just cc me and send it to Byakuya. He’ll do a final check before we queue it.”

“Alright.” Hajime opened the document. It was only eight pages. Large font. Child’s play. “I’ll get on this right now, okay?”

“Thanks, Hinata.” Makoto sighed. “I’ll spot your lunch sometime next week.”

“Seriously, it’s not a big deal, but I appreciate that.”

“Alright, alright.” Makoto laughed. “See you Monday.”

“Sure.” Hajime hung up. He let his phone drop from his hand and fall to the couch cushion. “Officious prick,” he muttered.

Setting the laptop to one side, Hajime stood and went back to the kitchen. Nagito had moved from the fridge to the counter to empty a couple of straggling shopping bags.

“Why’d you get all this pasta?” Hajime picked up one of the boxes and frowned. Penne. The worst pasta texture. “We’ve got plenty in the pantry, you know.”

Nagito shrugged and opened one of the upper cabinets. “I didn’t want to get only cake mix and milk,” he said, as if that were a perfectly normal reason. “And I think your coffee’s done.”

“Our coffee,” Hajime chided. He took a couple of mugs at random from a set of metal hangers he had installed above the counter. “Usual for you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wanted to flesh out this concept a little more and practice on my 3rd person limited. Comments and kudos are held dear and made this possible. I love you all. Stay safe.
> 
> The ending is a bit abrupt only because I wanted to shift back to Nagito for the last bit. Sorry! We'll pick up right where we left off.


	3. III: Nagito

Sometimes Nagito’s brain got so fixated on one specific thing that anything else thrown at him would get twisted into garbled white noise. One time, his therapist had speculated on something called ‘derealization’ – Nagito wasn’t sure. He had been too focused on counting the animal hairs on her slacks and trying to guess if she had a cat or a dog. It was much more interesting than listening to her attempts to get him to talk about his childhood.

Hajime was talking to him. Asking him something? He had already asked him about the pasta. What else was there?

Nagito’s head was getting pulled back somewhere else, back to the car. Rearranging the fridge had helped ground him. Hajime’s attention being more on the phone than on him also helped. It meant the stove wouldn’t be brought up, at least not yet.

Hajime was looking at him, saying something. Something about coffee?

Nagito forced himself to smile and say “just black is okay.”

“Come on, Nags, you hate black.” Hajime was frowning. “You want cream? Sugar?”

But Nagito was back in the car driving home. The two-lane street that their apartment was on had a modest speed limit. Quite gentle, which Nagito was thankful for. Driving made him anxious.

Truthfully, the internet shutting off in the store wasn’t the only thing that had happened. Even then, it wasn’t a big deal. Pretty mild as far as his luck went.

A grey squirrel had darted out from the sidewalk right in front of the car. Nagito recalled that its tail was about half as long as a normal squirrel’s would be. Maybe it had gone through some close shaves in the past.

“Hey, are you okay?”

It had happened so quickly, too fast to brake. It was like driving over a hose, a dull _thunk_ – no gruesome crunching or anything like that. Just a thud. Simple. A glance in the rear view mirror showed a crumpled little body with a stumpy fluttering tail. No blood or anything. It was an incident that had lasted only a few seconds. The perfect murder. The thought had made Nagito want to burst into a fit of hysterical cackling. The impulse had both intrigued and disgusted him all at once. Maybe he did laugh. He couldn’t remember.

“Come on, Nagito, come back. I’m here.” Someone (Hajime?) was touching him, a calloused hand on his shoulder. Another taking his flesh and blood hand. “I’m right here.”

Nagito wondered if the squirrel was still where he had left it. Maybe he should go back for it before it got too pancaked. He had once watched some YouTube tutorials on how to do amateur taxidermy with a little borax and some household tools. It had looked so simple, even a clumsy idiot like himself could probably do it without too much trouble.

Something new was happening. He was being guided somewhere, away from the whites and blues of the kitchen and into the browns and greens of the living room. A hand on the small of his back pushed him to stumble to the couch.

“Here, sit down for me, okay?” Gentle pressure on his shoulders encouraged his knees to unlock. “There you go. Good job.”

“I think I left your needles in the car,” Nagito said. The thought just occurred to him. He needed to say it before it went away for good. Another one. “I think I want to be a vegetarian.”

Someone, no, _Hajime_ was sitting next to him. Nagito could feel his arm loop around his shoulders, a warm and solid presence press against his side. He smelled Hajime’s smell and heard his voice.

“I’ll get them later, and honestly? You already barely eat meat as it is, so I don’t think that’s as major of a life commitment as you’re making it sound.” A pause. “You dissociating?” 

Nagito could feel Hajime twirling a lock of his hair, a gentle tugging at his scalp. He felt himself nod and mumble “I’m sorry about the stove.”

A sigh. “I already told you that I wasn’t even mad.” There it was again, that carefully controlled flat tone of voice. Hajime wasn’t as good of a liar as he thought he was.

“I forgot my tea in the car, too.”

“I’ll get it with the needles later unless you want it now.” The weight of an arm lifted from his shoulders, the feeling of a hand in his hair faded away. Nagito could sense Hajime shifting at his side. He was getting his laptop. That’s right. Makoto.

“You have to work.”

Hajime sighed again. “Unfortunately, but it shouldn’t take too long.”

Nagito felt himself snickering. “If you love your work so much, maybe we should get a divorce. So you can marry it instead.” The joke sounded a lot funnier in his head, but saying it made him absolutely chuffed. “Get it?”

He could practically hear Hajime roll his eyes. “Gee, you could have suggested that before we just recertified the lease. Oh well. Looks like you’re stuck with me.”

Another thought surfaced. “Did Naegi say hi back?” he asked. He moved to cling his arms around Hajime’s waist, with his prosthetic resting at abdomen and his cheek squished against his shoulder.

Hajime was looking over a document on the screen. “He did, yeah.” He glanced down and put a hand on the smooth metal of Nagito’s arm. “You want me to help you take this off?”

“No.”

“Nags, if you’re going to keep sleeping in it, you need to take it off during the day. At least for a little bit.” Hajime typed as he spoke. “You need to let your skin breathe.”

Nagito couldn’t think of a good enough rebuttal when his brain felt so cloudy. He watched Hajime type with one hand and take hold of Nagito’s metal fingers with the other. It didn’t matter if Nagito couldn’t ‘feel’ it. He could still sense it.

Hajime was muttering under his breath. “Three incorrectly used semi-colons in a single paragraph? He totally had the intern write this. Cheapskate.”

“Who’s a cheapskate?” asked Nagito. He nosed the crook of Hajime’s neck.

“The entirety of this barely legal astroturfing ‘non-profit 501c’ we call our sorry excuse of a charity organization.”

“Ah.”

“By the way, after I send this to Togami we’re both taking our meds.” Hajime was scrolling through the pages of whatever he was working on at a lightning paced speed. “Preferably with coffee.”

Nagito grimaced. “Your use of the word ‘our’ is generous considering that they’re mostly mine.”

“Well I, for one, think it’s cute that we both take Cymbalta in the morning.” Hajime’s way of conveying humor was something Nagito loved about him. He was so dry. “Productive self-care. And if we both forget then we both get to feel like shit.”

Nagito always felt terrible in one way or another, but that wasn’t something he’d ever say out loud. Instead, he said “I can get your coffee.”

Hajime tilted his head so that it rested against Nagito’s. “Only if you’re feeling okay enough to get up,” he murmured. “I’m almost done with this, so if you just want to chill and stay off your feet you can do that, too. You want toast for breakfast?”

“I ate before I left earlier.”

“Yeah, doubt it. You’re a terrible liar.”

“So are you.” Nagito huffed and tightened his hold around his spouse’s waist. “Check mate, Haji.” He watched Hajime click away from the document to his email. “Done already?”

Hajime nodded and cleared his throat. “Between you and me, I don’t get why Naegi always asks me to do random entry level shit like this. I mean. I get it. But just because I can do something doesn’t mean I’m the best person for it.”

“It’s because they think you’re reliable.” Nagito watched as Hajime first typed ‘Good Morning, Togami’ before quickly deleting it to type ‘Happy Saturday, Togami’ followed by more deleting to type ‘Here’s your food, Asshole’ before finally settling on a milquetoast ‘Hello’.

Hajime snorted. “I don’t know about that.”

“I don’t like it when you beat yourself up, Hajime.” Nagito chided. He meant it. Nothing made him feel worse, mentally and physically. He hated it.

“You’re one to talk, you know. The pot calling the kettle black.” Hajime chuckled and typed up a few curt sentences. “There. Done, thank god.” He snapped the laptop shut and tucked it under the coffee table.

Nagito moved to kiss Hajime’s cheek. “Congratulations.” 

Hajime smiled ruefully. “Thank you, thank you. Come here.” He took his arms around Nagito’s waist to pull him back, with his head resting against the arm rest and Nagito’s head pressed against his chest.

Nagito let himself be repositioned with a comfortable hum. His hands gripped at Hajime’s shirt. “The coffee, though.”

When Hajime spoke, Nagito could feel the rumble of his voice against his ear. “Eh, it’s no rush. It gets stronger the longer it’s in the pot.”

“Bitter, you mean.”

“That’s how you know it’s working.” Hajime laughed. Nagito loved feeling his chest rise and fall. It was a safe feeling, especially when Hajime’s tone took on that soft and sweet tone that Nagito lived and breathed for. “Let’s rest for a sec, okay?"

Nagito closed his eyes.

“That would be nice.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's a wrap! Thank you all so much for your comments. They really helped push me to do more with this. I'm really digging this old married couple style for these two.


	4. Bonus: Nightmare (Nagito)

_“Next time you get those dreams, wake me up, okay? Just jab my arm or something. Shake me. Punch me. Whatever. Just promise you’ll wake me up next time? Please?”_

Ironic that ‘next time’ would be that same night.

It had started out normal, with one key difference. Hajime, somehow, had convinced Nagito to not sleep with his prosthetic on. He had helped him take it off, a cumbersome process that left his left arm, well, handless. The limb ended just below his elbow.

Hajime had chided him for keeping it on for too long (again) and practically dragged Nagito to the bathroom. “After I clean the dead skin off let me put some of that weird shea butter stuff I got from the health food store on it,” he had said.

Nagito, feeling weirdly bitter, had surrendered to getting pampered with as much sarcasm and huffiness as he could muster up. So what if his useless excuse for an arm got ‘scaly’?

Fifteen minutes later and they were both stripped to boxers and spooning to sleep, with Nagito taking outside patrol. They liked to switch it up. Not that it mattered. By next morning they would be on opposite sides of the bed with a chaotic tangle of sheets between them.

So it had been normal, for the most part. Nagito liked routine. He found it comforting, even if there was always that lingering itch in the back of his skull that the unpredictability of his luck was always seconds away from snapping him in its jaws.

Hajime always fell asleep first, which Nagito hated. There was something surreal and terrifying about being alone in a dark room with a sleeping person, even if that person was Hajime. It was the silence of it, rather, the silence punctuated by little noises that set him on-edge.

They lived in a better-than-average apartment complex, which meant that the walls weren’t completely useless in blocking out sound. It didn’t take away the occasional heavy footstep from the ceiling, or the thudding bass on Friday nights, or, worst of all, the 3AM muffled screaming arguments that would make Nagito lock himself in the bathroom and stuff shreds of balled up toilet paper in his ears.

He never told Hajime that the sounds bothered him, but Hajime knew. Was it his ‘ultimate-level’ perception? Or was it that he knew Nagito more than Nagito knew himself? Did it matter? Probably not.

Hajime had encouraged him to try and ask his primary care doctor for a prescription sleep aid. No dice. Nagito ended up getting told that most sleep aids on the market would interact badly with the routine meds his oncologist had him on to keep him surfing the remission tidal wave. “Try over the counter melatonin,” she had said, not knowing that Nagito had already built up too high of a tolerance for it to work.

Weird home remedies on Google didn’t work either. Chamomile tea just made him keep getting up for the bathroom in the middle of the night. Weighted blankets made him feel trapped. He had gotten a cheap white noise maker, but it just made everything worse. The sound deadened everything around him and made him think of the warehouse.

Hajime had been poking his head around this new health food store that had opened up a few months ago. Personally, Nagito didn’t understand the appeal. You were just paying more for the same stuff you’d find cheaper at a big box store, just with pretty set dressing.

One night, Hajime had proudly presented him with a valerian root supplement (with the price tag strategically peeled off). It was a bunch of larger capsules with mashed up plant matter in it. Hajime was fervently convinced that it would be the cure-all for both of their insomniac tendencies.

It worked like a charm for Hajime and did absolutely nothing for Nagito. Just his luck.

So Hajime slept and Nagito kept watch.

He kept thinking about the squirrel. Would it still be there, even now? No point in trying to find it at this point. Nagito tried to imagine what it looked like after hours of getting trampled over and smashed deep into the crevices of the asphalt. Its fur was probably matted – maybe the tail had gotten ripped clean off. Or maybe a friendly vulture had swung by and taken a liking to it.

Hajime was snoring. Nagito liked it when Hajime snored. It was like a beacon call that he was still alive, and it had a consistent rhythm that lulled him into something like peace.

He tightened his hold around Hajime’s waist and pressed his face against the divot between his shoulder blades. 

Would Hajime let him take up casual taxidermy as a hobby? Maybe. Hajime was pretty tolerant of Nagito’s more macabre fascinations. He had known what he was getting into in marrying him. He drew the line at explosives crafting, but that was okay. Partnerships were all about compromise.

It was settled. Tomorrow, Nagito would ask if it would be okay to keep some spare zip-locks and a box of gloves in the car trunk. You never knew when salvageable roadkill struck. A little preparation and one could be ready at a moment’s notice.

Nagito could feel his brain start to drift. He let it happen.

The best part about sleeping was that gentle falling feeling, that weird transition from reality to something else, to a movie theater in your own brain. Unless you had lucid dreams. Nagito didn’t have lucid dreams, which he was eternally thankful for. It would have made his nightmares that much worse.

So he slept.

If there was one thing that Nagito could say about his nightmares, it was that they were predicable. His brain seemed to be fixated on only a select few of his traumas. If he wasn’t dreaming of Jabberwock, he was dreaming of being Servant. One or the other. A 50/50 card flip.

But this was different. Nagito didn’t see the musty dark of the warehouse. He didn’t feel his collar getting yanked at by a rust flecked chain.

He saw a dog. It was a Great Pyrenees, a big white and fluffy breed with sad liquid eyes and hanging jowls that gave off an impression of being both foolish and distinguished.

The dog was looking up at him. Its mouth was closed, its tail swaying to and fro in a lazy and relaxed way.

Nagito could only watch through the eyes of his dreamscape avatar. He saw his hands reach out and watched as the dog began to pant and lean in to his touch, amber eyes rolling back in stupid ecstasy.

His hands scratched the dog behind its floppy ears and the dog whined in contentment, the skin of its back thigh twitching.

“There you go,” he heard himself say, but it wasn’t quite his voice. It was a child’s voice. Himself, just much younger. “Good boy.”

The realization hit him then. Oh. Oh how _fitting._ Of course this is what his subconscious would cook up for him. A special event. A ‘Limited edition’ pull as far as his nightmares went.

Nagito watched as the dog pulled away, watched as the dog spun and turned, watched as a road manifested into the blank landscape like a theater set piece on cue.

Yup, there was the semi-truck. Like clockwork.

He heard himself call his dog’s name, at least that’s what he assumed. His brain couldn’t remember what the dog’s name actually was, so it just came out as nonsense English.

The dog glanced back at him. The truck made impact. It looked like the driver hadn’t even bothered to brake. Nagito wondered if that was actually what had happened, or if his brain was just filling in the gaps of his rotting memory.

The dog yelped. It squealed. Like a struck pig, a high toned screeching racket that set Nagito’s teeth on edge. He watched the truck hit, watched the tire struggle to roll over the body –

He woke up feeling cold sweat and warm hands holding his cheeks. Panic. He felt his arms thrash out at nothing. One of them, his handless one, made a dull thudding sound when it hit something, no, someone. 

“ _Whoa_ , whoa! Nagito! _Hey_!”

The hands went away, and Nagito knew then that he had been crying. He couldn’t breathe. He heard his own breaths suck in and out in wheezing gasps. Someone was staring at him, a man, looking frightened.

“Get away!” he heard himself say, a rasping growl. He scrambled backwards. “Get away, _get away_!”

The man didn’t follow him. He was sitting up on his knees and holding his hands out in a bizarre gesture of surrender. His face was obscured by the dark, but Nagito could see it contort into something like worry and fear.

Nagito tried to widen the distance between them, but he had reached the far side of the mattress. He tried to crawl back further and nearly lost his balance when his hand met air.

“Nags, you’re gonna fall if you keep going,” said the man. His cadence was calm, familiar. “I’m so sorry for touching you. You were screaming. I didn’t know what else to do, but that’s kind of a shitty excuse. I don’t know.”

Nagito didn’t know what to say to that. He risked a glance back, just to confirm that he wasn’t being lied to. He didn’t register where or who he was. Everything felt fuzzy.

“Who are you?” He heard himself whisper.

“I – what?” The man flinched back, eyebrows raised. “Nagito, it’s Hajime.”

“Who?”

“You’re seriously starting to freak me out, Nags. Like, I’m two steps away from calling a fucking ambulance. I’m Hajime, your husband? I’ve known you for more than a decade?” The man’s voice seemed to get higher the more anxious he got. Nagito could see him shaking as he started to ramble. “What else? I don’t know, we got married on Jabberwock, which in hindsight was kind of a tacky idea. I don’t know why we did that. I think it just made everyone even more convinced that we weren’t gonna stick.”

Nagito felt things slowly click back into place the longer he listened. Back to the realm of the living. Things were less foggy. The man on the other end of the bed looked less like a stranger and more like -

“Haji?” he breathed, recognition dawning. He shifted himself to try and sit up and wipe away the gummed-up tear streaks on his face. Instead he lost his balance and fell backwards, hitting the carpet with a crumpled thud.

“Oh _Christ_ , are you okay?!”

Nagito was lying on his back. He heard a quick patter of footsteps and Hajime was at his side looking down at him, reaching out before stopping and pulling back, clearly hesitant. “Shit, you didn’t hit your head, did you?” he asked.

“I don’t think so.”

Hajime sighed. “Okay… Can you sit up?”

Nagito tried, but it was difficult to balance on only one hand and even harder still to try and raise himself up. He had to give up after a minute of struggling. Pathetic.

“Is it okay if I help?” asked Hajime. He was still awkwardly holding out his hands, like he had been paused midway.

“I should just sleep here.”

“Sorry, but that’s not an answer. Yes, or no, can I touch you?”

Nagito looked away. He felt equal parts embarrassed and exhausted. “…Sure.”

“Alright, I’m gonna pick you up, okay?” Hajime hooked one arm under Nagito’s back, with the other underneath his thighs. “Help me with leverage and put your arms around my neck.”

“I’m sorry about this,” mumbled Nagito. He wrapped his arms around Hajime’s neck and pressed his face against his bare chest.

“Don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault.” Hajime grunted and stood. His grip was shaky as he gently set Nagito back on the mattress. “Alright, you can let go.”

Nagito didn’t let go, instead opting to nuzzle himself further into Hajime. He was warm, like cozy fireplace warm. He smelled like hazelnuts and citrus.

He could feel the curve of Hajime’s smile against his forehead. “Come on, bud, I can’t lie down unless you let go.”

“Mnah.”

“What, so now I just have to keep myself stooped over while you sleep? Cold.”

Reluctantly, Nagito let go with a huff and settled back into a nest of blankets. He closed his eyes.

Hajime must have walked back around the bed to scooch back under the covers. Nagito could feel the mattress shift and dip under his weight. He felt an arm drop over his side and pull him into a lazy hug. Nagito let himself get tugged back to Hajime’s chest, with his husband’s chin resting against his head.

“You want to talk about it?” asked Hajime, his voice quiet.

“Bout’ what?” Nagito moved to hug Hajime back, but not before letting his finger trace over one of his long faded scars, gentle upward curves. They were one of Hajime’s best features, in his opinion.

“Your dream, nightmare, whatever.” Hajime tightened his grip. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but I don’t know. I wasn’t kidding when I said you were screaming. It scared the shit out of me, Nags.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I would have. It wasn’t even that bad, really.” For once, he wasn’t downplaying.

Hajime didn’t seem satisfied. “And then you freaked out when you woke up… you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine.” Nagito could feel himself slipping again. He could hear Hajime’s heartbeat. “Maybe we can talk about it tomorrow?”

“Alright…” Hajime sighed again. “Get some sleep.”

Nagito hummed and moved one of his legs overtop of Hajime’s. He kissed his chest. “Kay… Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While the main story itself is finished, I still want to do a little more with these two. I'm a sucker for a good nightmare, and I thought it'd be interesting to do it with these interpretations in particular. 
> 
> I may or may not keep adding to this with other ideas. I hope that's okay. I feel like it makes for more accessible reading, rather than making a whole collection. 
> 
> Again, comments and kudos always make my day. Keep being grand.


	5. Bonus: Late (Hajime)

“Hajime?”

Hajime was halfway opening the apartment door, keys in-hand. He turned back to Nagito. “What? We’re already late.”

“Did you mean to not put your contact in?” Nagito was shuffling from foot to foot, his e-reader clutched at his side. He looked like he had just woken up and thrown on whatever was closest to him (he had), a wrinkled baggy sweater and washed-out jeans. His hair was more of a mess than usual. Hajime probably didn’t look much better in his ‘I wear this to go out but not to work’ windbreaker.

“I didn’t?” Shit. Hajime gauged his options. Either be even more late for the sake of vanity, or be less late to be less of an asshole.

Nagito reached out and took his arm. “Go put it in. It’s okay. Dr. Hall is always late and it’ll only take you a second. You’ve got time.”

Yeah, but that was Doctor Privilege. Lowly commoner patients didn’t get the right to be late. Not that Hajime was bitter. Far from it. His brain was just doing mental math. He checked his phone and winced at the time. “It’s not like I need it to drive.”

Nagito looked pensive. “Are you sure…? You never go out without it.”

“It’s _fine_.” Hajime took the metal hand on his arm and tugged Nagito out the door and into the hall. “We’re wasting time talking about it.”

But Nagito was persistent, as always. “It’s next to the sink, right? Why don’t I just go grab it so you can put it on in the bathroom when we get there?”

It was a reasonable and logical idea. Too bad Hajime’s anxiety didn’t allow for rational thinking. “No, it’s fine. Promise. Let’s go.” He squeezed Nagito’s metal hand tighter and dragged him down the hall.

“You’re going to pull my hand off if you keep doing that.” Nagito sounded more than a little miffed.

“Shit, sorry. I’m sorry, bud.” Hajime let go but didn’t look back or stop walking. “You had the car last. You remember where you parked?” 

Nagito didn’t answer for a moment. On a rational level, Hajime knew it was because he was trying to remember. On a lizard-brained anxiety level, Hajime wanted to snap at his airhead husband to just _hurry up already._ But that was way too cruel of a thought to even consider, and Hajime kicked it down as quickly as it had surfaced.

They were almost outside, just past the rinky dink vestibule and they’d be a stone’s throw from the parking lot.

Thankfully, Nagito didn’t need to remember.

The car was in eyeshot, just a football field’s distance from the main door. It wasn’t much, just a light blue ratty two-door Chevy that had seen better days thanks to Nagito. Not that Nagito wasn’t a safe driver, more that his luck had the tendency to make other drivers bump and scrape into him.

Her name was Christine (Christine the Car- Nagito had named her and Hajime still wasn’t sure if it was a reference or something he had just pulled out of his ass). Shame that her insurance premiums were as high as they were. But Kazuichi gave Hajime free oil changes and tune-ups (under the strict stipulation that “that freak you live with” (his words) didn’t come along), so it balanced out.

“Wow, lucky I parked so close, huh?” Nagito’s laugh was as wheezy as ever.

Hajime scoffed. “Yeah, yeah.” He checked his phone while they walked. “Your appointment is in ten minutes.”

“You’re not going to speed, right?”

“I’m going to get us there on time and it’s a fifteen-minute drive.”

“ _Hajime._ ”

Hajime wheeled around. “What?” he bit.

“It’d be extremely ironic if you got us T-boned and killed in an intersection on the way to a doctor’s office, don’t you think?” Nagito was giving him that smarmy grin that Hajime both loved and hated. “We’ll make it. And if we don’t, we’ll just reschedule, right?”

Compelling argument were it anyone else, but Hajime was cynical enough and knew Nagito well enough to know that his spouse was probably gaming for the latter to happen. Hajime didn’t ‘have’ to take PTO to help Nagito keep up with his oncology appointments. It wasn’t like Nagito wasn’t a grown man capable of handling his own schedule.

There were a couple of reasons why Hajime insisted he come along. The first was that Nagito was infuriatingly apathetic towards his own health and would otherwise conveniently ‘forget’ that he had an appointment to begin with. It pissed Hajime off to no end.

The second reason was that Hajime was fucking terrified. Relapses happened. He had gone through more than one tango with Nagito’s lymphoma clawing its way back to the surface. It never got easier to notice the warning signs. He had a nightly habit of obsessively inspecting Nagito’s neck for swelling, which Nagito only barely tolerated. “You’re worrying too much,” he would say.

And the worst part of all was whenever it was confirmed outright, whenever the doctor would say it and make it real, Nagito would just smile in that passive way of his and say some shit like “oh, that’s too bad” while Hajime would be embarrassing himself and everyone around him with hitching blubbering waterworks.

“Uh, Hajime?”

“Huh?” Hajime blinked. He was holding the car door handle.

Nagito was at the passenger side. “You look like you spaced out for a second.” Blunt as always. “I can drive if you want.”

Hajime tapped the remote key to unlock the car doors, about four more times than he needed to. “I’m fine, just stressed.” And honestly, letting Nagito drive was always a terrible decision. Hajime loved him to pieces, but the man drove like a grandpa on the way to his own funeral and he never went anywhere near the speed limit.

They ducked into the car. Hajime had to waste two more minutes to readjust the mirrors and seat angle. He caught a glimpse of his face in the rear view mirror and flinched at the bright red eye that glared back at him. His head had been going into overdrive for so long that had already forgotten the whole contact debacle.

Hajime’s feelings on having such a visible remnant of Kamakura were more than a little complicated. Too much to get into. Nagito had tried to affirm over and over again that the whole heterochromia thing was “very handsome” and “a hopeful reminder of all that you’ve been through”. Hajime didn’t have the heart to tell him that saying things like that just flat-out did not help.

“Haji, please just let me go get it.” Nagito was bouncing his leg and fumbling with the e-reader in his lap. “I can tell that you’re uncomfortable.” 

“I swear I’m fine,” Hajime lied, then followed up with a truth. “It’ll just be weird for a bit. People at the doc’s office are gonna think I got into a fight or something.”

“Then just correct them.” Nagito shrugged and buckled his seat belt. “Or lie and tell them you were born with it, or don’t say anything at all.”

Hajime would sooner jump out a window than tell a complete stranger that he had once consented to being a human guinea pig. You know, just your average dumb teenage life choices. No big. Lying and telling people it was natural didn’t seem all that much better, but it wasn’t a terrible idea.

NPR blasted from the radio and Hajime immediately clicked it off. News would just make him more anxious than he already was.

As Hajime craned his neck around to back out, another thought occurred him. “Shit, didn’t Dr. Hall want you to do blood work? You’re fasting, right?”

“You’re definitely out of it if you’re asking me something like that.” Nagito leaned his head against the window. “And before you ask, I don’t need the order slip. It’s in my chart.”

“Touchy.” Hajime pulled out of the parking lot with as much speed as would be considered socially acceptable.

“It’s pronounced ‘touché’, you know. It’s French.”

Hajime snorted. “Alright, Monsieur, you want the AC on?” He reached for the knobs and kept his eyes on the road. “Any music? Just no news.”

“I’m fine.” Nagito leaned his seat back a little. “And anything other than NPR is… depressing.”

“Most people generally think the opposite, you know.”

“I don’t see how. Publically funded radio as a concept is a lot more inspiring than corporate-owned monopoly channels that – Oh!!” Nagito sat up with the intensity of a struck lightning rod and pointed at something just down the road. “Hajime!! Look!”

Hajime nearly swerved onto the sidewalk. “What what _what!_ Jesus fuck, Nagito!” he snapped. He followed his gaze where Nagito was pointing.

His frayed nerves were already threadbare as-is. This just took the cake. They were still on their straight two-lane residential street, a hodge-podge of townhouses and side-alleys that gave way to apartment complexes.

Two blocks away (soon to be one) was a small indistinguishable lump of mottled brown fur. Whatever it was, it must have been side-swiped or something. It didn’t look crushed at all.

“It’s perfect! What luck!” Nagito looked more awake than he had since yesterday. He was beaming. “Pull over, Haji. I’ll get it.”

Hajime only barely allowed himself to press the brakes, if only to let Nagito get a longer look at…. whatever it was. “Absolutely not.”

Nagito was already twisted around and flailing his arms around in the back seat. Probably for the random assortment of zip-locks and disposable gloves that Hajime had (begrudgingly) agreed to keep in the car. “It’ll be quick – “

“No way.” They were nearing closer to it now. Yeah, definitely a small rabbit and not a cat. Thank god. “We’re already late, you know, to your doctor’s appointment?”

“I swear it’ll be less than a minute.”

“Even if we weren’t running late I refuse to have a dead animal bake in our car for at least an hour, if not more.” Let alone have said dead animal get disemboweled on the dining room table, but Hajime had already agreed to that being a likely future event in his quaint married life. Joy.

Nagito turned back to face forward, gloves already slipped on and bag at the ready. “Well, maybe I can just keep it under the car outside while we’re there? That way it’ll stay shady and cool, so it probably won’t start putrefying if it hasn’t already.”

Hajime gripped the wheel in one hand and pinched his nose with the other. He was so tired. “I’m sorry, Nags. I love you – “

“I love you, too!” Nagito cut him off with a sweet smile.

“But that idea is fucking disgusting.” Hajime wasn’t going to budge no matter how much persuasion was thrown at him. He knew where to draw his boundaries. He had done it before (most notably with an incident involving Molotov cocktails and homemade bathtub-brewed ammonia) and he’d do it again.

He shot a glance over at Nagito as they drove by the corpse. Only half of his husband’s face was visible from his unruly hair, but the sheer mournful disappointment in his expression was clear enough.

Finally, a few moments of silence, Nagito exhaled a long and airy sigh. “I suppose you’re right.” He took off his gloves with the same exhausted energy as an unsuccessful surgeon. “Such a loss, though.”

Hajime readjusted his hold on the steering wheel and kept his eyes on the road as he held out a hand. An olive branch. “There will be others in your future, bud, I’m sure.” He felt the cool smooth metal of Nagito’s gently clasp his palm and smiled. “Maybe it’ll still be there on the way back.” He hoped that it wouldn’t be, but Nagito didn’t need to know that.

“Doubtful, but that’s alright. I still need to get a couple extra supplies, anyway.” Nagito squeezed Hajime’s hand. It was far from a strong hold. His prosthetic could only really manage a light grip at best, but it was still something.

They were nearing an intersection, one that had a tendency to make or break an ETA for how long the red light dragged. It was green by the time they reached it, and so was every subsequent traffic light after. All the while Nagito was propped back his seat and keeping his eyes closed to doze.

His luck really did manifest in weird ways.

They made it to the doctor’s office with exactly one minute to spare and a parking spot right next to the door. Wild. Almost a statistical impossibility considering their earlier slowdown, but Hajime wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

“You go on ahead and check-in.” Hajime killed the engine and unclicked his seatbelt. “I’m gonna hit the bathroom.”

“One second.” Nagito leaned over the center console and gently bonked his forehead against Hajime’s before pressing a light, almost chaste kiss at his lips. “For not speeding,” he whispered. “See? I told you it’d work out.”

“You were always the smart one.” Hajime chuckled softly and reciprocated with a soft peck at the tip of Nagito’s nose. “But you know, we’re late now.”

“Touché, Haji.” Nagito giggled. He took up his e-reader and left the car, closing the door with a soft click.

Hajime lingered behind both to inspect his parking job as well as to double-check that the car was locked (not that anyone who’d take two looks at Christine would even consider nabbing her, but still). Nagito was already at the door before he finally began to trail behind.

The oncologist shared an office space with an endocrinologist, with the two practices separated by a sterile hallway and a set of bathrooms. Very utilitarian. No frills. 

By the time Hajime had gotten to the door and made it to the hallway, Nagito was already at the front desk of the oncology office with the usual secretary. He thought he heard her chirp out something like “oh, Mr. Komaeda-Hinata! You made it!” along with some self-deprecating reply from Nagito. The usual.

Hajime went for the men’s room. Thankfully, it was empty. A stroke of personal good luck for him.

Before he went in the single stall, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Saw the two-toned eyes that looked back at him.

For some reason, he didn’t feel anxious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More to come possibly. It's worth noting that these are all in chronological order, unless explicitly stated otherwise, despite being generally unrelated. 
> 
> Comments and kudos give me life. I'm so glad you all are enjoying this. It's a lot of fun for me to keep going! c':


	6. Bonus: Happy 15 (Nagito)

For Nagito, the best sleep was blacked-out unconsciousness. Dreams were tiring and his nightmares were, for the most part, pathetically repetitive. He had once told Hajime that getting put under anesthesia had given him the best sleep of his life.

Hajime wasn’t the biggest fan of that particular sentiment. Nagito couldn’t understand why.

It must have been a weekday, because Nagito woke up to the off-putting blare of Hajime’s phone alarm at 7AM, followed by bleary sleep-drunk mumbling. “I got it, I got it. I’m up. Fuck. Up. Ugh.”

Nagito couldn’t remember what day of the week it was. He told himself that he liked the element of surprise. Really, it was more that being unemployed meant that days kind of blended together.

Still, he was disappointed. He could have sworn that it was Sunday, or at least Saturday. Or a day that he had an appointment that Hajime would drag him to instead of going to work.

The mattress shifted underneath him. Nagito didn’t need to look to know that Hajime was getting up. It was a shame that they always woke up on opposite ends of the bed. He always fantasized waking up to being held by or holding Hajime. It was a cheesy sentiment that Nagito kept well to himself.

He heard Hajime’s heavy footsteps trod to the bathroom followed by the soft click of the door. Nagito cracked open his eyes to see the room light bleed through the cracks.

Sometimes Nagito would pretend to sleep throughout Hajime’s pre-work morning routine. He’d give up the ruse only when Hajime would lean over and brush the hair out of his face to whisper a ‘good morning’ to him. Nagito always found that painfully sweet, that Hajime would bother to do little things like that when he thought Nagito was asleep.

This morning, Nagito felt restless. He kept still for a few lingering moments before reaching for the lamp at his nightstand, careful not to knock anything to the floor. He clicked it on and blinked at the light.

He could hear the shower rumble to life to the tune of groaning hot water pipes. Nagito moved to sit up, only to lose his balance and fall back to the pillows with a soft “oof.” – He had forgotten that he had taken his prosthetic off yesterday evening, at Hajime’s insistence. The only problem was that not having it on made doing simple things like sitting up a struggle. Nagito didn’t really have much in the way of core strength, and bracing himself on only one hand was difficult.

Still, he managed after a couple of shaky attempts. He had to catch his breath once he was up. Thank goodness Hajime was preoccupied in showering. He probably looked pathetic.

His hand must have been left in the living room. The only things on Nagito’s nightstand were his e-reader and phone, along with a glass half-filled with stale water that probably deserved a trip to the dishwasher for how many times Nagito had reused it.

Nagito reached for his phone first and clicked it on. “Oh… Monday, huh?” he murmured to himself. At least he wasn’t completely off.

He had a couple of text notifications nested on his lock screen. Nagito leaned back against the headboard and clicked on them.

‘ _MR._ _KOMAEDA-HINATA, your prescription for TR is ready for pick-up. Text DOB as mmdd to get the full drug name and- ‘_

Nagito swiped the notification away, only to have it replaced by another one, something different that had been sent several hours prior.

‘ _Happy 15 Months, Dear Nagito!! Such a lovely milestone to reach. On behalf of me and Gundham, we wish you the happiest of celebratory festivities today! Keep fighting! We would love to see you and Sweet Hajime for a visit to Novoselic once you are deemed to be in travel-safe health. PS: did you enjoy the book recommendations I sent you on Goodreads?’_

The message with saturated with sparkle emojis, the usual style for Sonia’s brand of texting. Still, that wasn’t what Nagito focused on.

Had it really been fifteen months? Already? Nagito didn’t really know what to make of that. He supposed he was pleased on some level. Maybe the cocktail of medication he took really was doing something.

Still, every milestone made him feel strange. It was hard to explain, harder still with Hajime’s frazzled attitude about it. His luck was bound to turn, and turn badly. The greater the hope, the greater despair.

He and Hajime would be having cake this evening. Nagito’s stomach turned at the thought of it.

There was another text. Nagito opened it.

_‘hey u weird fucker why dont u ever text me back?? trying to be nice here and u never reply. hajime said you kicked cancer’s ass for another month. that’s pretty sweet – you or him drink these days? ok if u don’t but if u want we should all go to this craft brewery peko found. its got a chill atmosphere. anyway congrats and u better reply this time or ill kick ur ass (kidding haha).’_

Nagito felt very, very tired. Fuyuhiko knew, too? Him plus Sonia knowing probably meant that Hajime had told everyone in the group chat that he maintained with the other former Remnants. Nagito wasn’t in it, partly because he didn’t want to be (he just knew that he’d kill the vibe) but more because his presence was more than a little divisive. He couldn’t blame the people who still fostered deep-rooted resentment for him.

But as much as they hated him, they loved Hajime. Hajime got along more or less with everyone, and that meant that even the people who couldn’t stand Nagito still had to at least superficially tolerate his existence.

It made him want to throw up.

He still had a few texts left. Might as well push through them.

‘ _Ryota and I are extremely proud of you, Komaeda. We will toast in your honor this evening. Please do not feel pressured to reply. Just know that you and Hinata are welcome to see us at any time. You need only let us know when and where. We are always thinking of you and wishing you the best of health.’_

_‘HEYYYYYYY HAPPY BIRTHDAY NAGGY WOOT WOOT get turnt and call me sometime!!!! :P if im at a show ill put u on speaker for the audience!!!!’_

Nagito swiped through them both with a quick glance, only barely reading them. None of it mattered. It’s not like they would have reached out if Hajime hadn’t said anything. It’s not like Nagito had any social media (GoodReads didn’t count) or made any effort to talk to them himself.

“You can’t expect people to know when you’re hurting,” his therapist would always say. “You have to be the one to make the push. It doesn’t have to be much, just a nudge is okay, but it’s on you to do it.”

It was a shame that Hajime had to waste twenty dollars of his hard-earned money every Wednesday afternoon on such a useless copay.

“Hey, you’re up?”

Nagito looked up from his phone to find Hajime ruffling a towel through his damp hair. His bare skin was flushed from his shower, scrubbed and dried, full of life. He had already put his contact in.

“I’m up.” Nagito put his phone aside and mustered up a faint smile.

“Was it the alarm or me banging around that did it?” Hajime bent down and brushed away an errant lock of Nagito’s hair. He cupped his cheek, his rough palm made soft from the water and radiating warmth.

Nagito closed his eyes and melted into the touch. The tension that had been coiling up inside of him started to fade. He didn’t answer Hajime’s question. It would have taken too much thought then.

He felt Hajime’s thumb stroke at his jawbone. He heard his soft chuckle. Felt his lips kiss his forehead and linger there.

“You want to go back to sleep? Or would you want coffee? I’ll make some extra for you, if you want.”

“I’ll get up,” Nagito mumbled. He slowly began to unravel himself from the sheets. “Did I leave my hand in the living room?”

Hajime straightened up and made for their shared closet. “Think so. I can get it for you after I get dressed.”

“No, I got it.” Nagito felt the blood rush to his head when he stood. He felt a little dizzy for a few seconds before his brain decided to clear up and focus. “I can start heating some water for you.”

Hajime was buttoning up a crisp white dress shirt and tucking the ends into some lightly wrinkled slacks. “Sure, as long as you use – “

“Yes, I’ll use the water heater.” Nagito drew out his words in a long, mock-irritated sigh.

“I’m just teasing you, Nags.” Hajime grinned. He looped a black tie around his neck. “You can use the kettle if you really want to. Hiro won’t be by for another half hour at least.”

“Alright.”

As Nagito stepped for the bedroom door, Hajime reached for his arm. “C’mere a sec for me.”

“Hm?”

He felt himself get pulled into a full-body hug, their bodies flush together, with Hajime’s arms wrapped firmly around his midriff. He felt a hand rest at the jut of his thigh, just above the elastic hem of his boxers. Another pressed against his shoulder, skin on skin.

Hajime was so warm. He was always a perfect temperature. Toasty and inviting.

Nagito felt tears prick at the corners of his eyes. It was a silly thing to cry about, but he couldn’t help it. He flung his arms around Hajime’s chest and, with his one hand, clung tight to his dress shirt.

He felt the slow rise and fall of Hajime’s chest against his own.

“You made it to fifteen,” Hajime murmured against Nagito’s shoulder. The puffs of his breath made his skin tingle. “You made it.”

His voice had a thick, deepened quality to it and Nagito knew then that Hajime was going to cry. He didn’t know what to say to keep it from happening. Probably nothing.

“I guess I did.” It was all Nagito really _could_ say. He clutched even tighter at Hajime’s shirt. He wished he had his prosthetic on. Hajime deserved to have two hands hold him.

He wondered, was this going to happen every month going forward? He had already broken his record last month. Now every month was a new bar set, a new goal reached.

Every thirty days, random people who weren’t really his friends would text him. His husband would hold him, sob on his shoulder and tell him how wonderful it was that he was alive. His oncologist and primary care doctor would send him curt congratulatory messages on his voicemail.

Nagito knew, he just knew that it wasn’t going to last. Maybe Hajime did, too, deep down. Maybe that was why he was so scared of it all the time. The damned boxed cake was just an outlet.

“We’ve got this,” Hajime was saying, a broken little phrase. “I know we’ve got it this time. I know it.”

Nagito loved him too much to tell him otherwise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you as always for the absurdly kind comments and attention;;;; I am so honored. 
> 
> Next one will be much more lighthearted. Promise.


	7. Bonus: Carpool (Hajime) Feat: Yasuhiro

Yasuhiro, otherwise known to everyone but his debt collectors as ‘Hiro’, lived in the same apartment complex as Hajime and Nagito. Specifically, two floors up in the cheaper one-bedroom segment.

Neither Hajime nor Nagito knew this before they had signed their lease and moved in a couple of years prior. Hajime had never considered the possibility that he’d share a communal residence with one of his coworkers. He had always been under the impression that most of the Future Foundation brood were homeowners. No idea why. The org just gave off that kind of yuppie upper middle class ‘fake it till you make it’ vibe.

Nagito had been the one to find out. He ended up walking in on Hiro trying to rob a vending machine from the building manager’s office.

“It was pretty impressive,” Nagito had later recounted. “He got his whole forearm wedged in there before he saw me.”

From there, it was a snowball effect. Hiro, being Hiro, hadn’t really recognized Nagito as anyone other than a former Remnant. Never mind the fact that Hajime kept not one, but two photos framed on his desk with Nagito featured front and center.

It took a month or so for things to click. A little while later Hiro had seen Hajime and Nagito together in the residential parking lot coming back from a grocery run and carrying handfuls of those tacky reusable bags made from recycled water bottles.

Hiro had waved over to them and shouted from down the sidewalk. “Oh, Hajman! You live here, too?! I didn’t know you were friends with one of the ex-Remnants! That’s lit!”

Never mind the fact that one of the pictures on Hajime’s desk was a wedding portrait.

At the time, Hajime was more just ticked off. “Does he seriously not know at this point that I was a Remnant, too?”

Nagito had just shrugged and kept walking. “Well, he’s not entirely wrong. I’d say we’re pretty good friends.”

One thing had led to another and it wasn’t long before Hiro started seeking out Hajime at work, if only to invite him in on what seemed like a never ending parade of failed pyramid schemes on the pretense of it being “a neighborly thing to do”.

Good thing that Hajime’s tolerance for bullshit was pretty high, all things considered. He brushed off Hiro with as much tact as he could generate. The last thing he wanted to do was make an enemy of someone who lived in the same building as him, especially since Nagito had a bad habit of forgetting to lock the front door.

During one of these awkward one-sided conversations, it had somehow come up that Hajime and Nagito only had one car. Christine was decent, but she couldn’t be in two places at once, so nearly every weekday Nagito ended up confined to the house unless he wanted to use public transit.

Nagito had constantly tried to reassure Hajime that it didn’t bother him. He didn’t really have any interest in going out in the first place unless he needed to pick up his holds at the library. It still bothered Hajime. He always felt like he was deliberately taking away Nagito’s autonomy.

Hiro had absorbed this information with as much cunning enthusiasm as any aspiring entrepreneur would. “Whoa man, that sucks. So your Remnant buddy can’t go out while you’re working? Uncool. You wanna get in on like, a private ride-share system with me?”

So that was how Hajime found himself spending every weekday morning and evening sitting in a busted Subaru hatchback that smelled like kicked joints and drove like it hadn’t had an oil change since 1990. He and Hiro’s under the table arrangement was simple. For fifteen bucks a week, Hiro would let Hajime tag along in the passenger side.

It was a win for everyone. Hajime could spend the commute checking up on his emails and Nagito could leave the house if he so wished, and all for a perfectly negligible fee that Hiro would immediately dump into his bitcoin stocks. 

There were some downsides.

“So how’s the old ball and chain?” asked Hiro. He let go of the steering wheel to playfully elbow Hajime’s side. “Eh? Ehh?”

The main downside being Hiro himself.

Hajime looked up from his phone. “Sorry, the what?”

“Y’know, the ball and chain!” Hiro repeated. He scratched his head and kept switching his focus from the road back to Hajime. “I’m tryin’ to make small talk here, Hajman. Some pre-work water cooler talk, or whatever. You want me to fall asleep on the road?”

They rattled over a speed bump and Hajime could swear that he heard the undercarriage getting scraped. He winced and felt his stomach flip as the car bounced. “Hard to make ‘small talk’ if I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He tried to focus back on his phone. There was an unread text from Kazuichi.

_‘you TOTALLY saw that final play, right??? Suck it, H!!! 9-3!!! Total slaughterhouse. when you getting me that brewski lmao??’_

Hajime quickly tapped a reply.

_‘Fuck off I’m still in mourning’_

Hiro wrenched the wheel to the side to a take a tight turn. “What I’m talking about is your spouse, man. The ball and chain!”

“Wait, excuse me?” Hajime snapped his full attention back to Hiro. “You’re talking about Nagito?”

Hiro pushed his roundish glasses up. “Yeah, man. There you go again.”

“Huh?” It was way too early for this.

“You just called him a nag!” Hiro tsked. “Only six months into the whole partnership thing and you’re already name-calling? Sounds like you should have done some divine consultation before tying the knot. Rookie mistake.”

Hajime closed his eyes and breathed through his nose. “Hiro? I’ve been married for six years, not six months. And that’s not even how you pronounce Nagito’s name. It’s a long ‘a’ vowel, not a short one.”

“Oh…” Hiro wilted. “Well, I mean. Still no harm in doing a pulse check, right? Six years is like, the point where things start stagnating. Gotta be careful or you’ll lose the spark.”

“How’d your tinder date go?” Hajime countered. “You wouldn’t shut up about it the other day.” His phone pinged with a couple more texts. One was from Byakuya.

‘ _Director is calling a Branch 14 all-hands meeting at 1000 hrs – tell Mr. Clairvoyant to not hide in the bathroom this time. Thank you.’_

“Man, why’d you have to bring that up?” Hiro groaned. “It went great until I gave her a tarot reading and told her we’d be having four kids in two years. She left for the bathroom and didn’t come back, so I had to foot her bill!”

“She probably left because bringing up having kids on the first date comes off as, I don’t know, kind of creepy and forward?” Hajime typed out a quick reply to Byakuya and sent it off. “By the way, Togami says we’ve got an all-hands at 10AM and he’s going to make sure you’re there this time.”

Hiro scoffed. “How’s it creepy? I thought I was doing her a favor by not charging my consultation fee. And as for Byakuya, he can – “

Hajime tuned him out. His other text notification was from Nagito.

_‘reading this made me think of you. if you want to see more of her work I can renew the collection I borrowed. pls let me know when you’re there safe’_

There was a long URL tagged on at the end of the text. Hajime opened it. It linked to webpage cataloguing a poem by Sylvia Plath, “Love Letter”. He smiled.

If Hajime’s love language was all in little actions and observations, Nagito’s was through his bookish tendencies. He had always had difficulty expressing himself, and he often turned to showering Hajime with snippets of prose and bite-sized poems as a way to make it easier to showcase his vulnerability.

Every day there was at least one conversation that started with either “this reminds me of you” or “you’re just like this” – along with either a clumsily pasted website link or a poorly taken photo of a paragraph opened up on Nagito’s e-reader. If they were together in-person, then Nagito would just pass Hajime an opened book, a finger pointing at a sentence for him to start on, coaxing him with a soft “look.”

Hajime had never really read much, but he found it all so charming and so genuine that it didn’t really matter. When Nagito sent him something, he sent it with intent. It made Hajime feel stupid love-struck sometimes, like he was this brutish oaf getting romanced by some Victorian Romeo type.

He backed out from the webpage and typed a reply.

_‘I’ll read it at lunch. We’re not there yet, but I’ll let you know when we pull in. Promise. Remember to take your meds if you haven’t already. I love you a lot Nags.’_

Hiro piped in. “What’s with that look on your face?”

Hajime cleared his throat and looked out the window. Judging by the landmarks, they’d be getting to the Branch 14 office soon. “Just thinking about how great it is to work for a truly pedigree organization like The Future Foundation.”

“Psh, you’re so full of shit.”

“So are you. Come on, Hiro. You don’t even do the assignments Naegi gives you, you just dump them off on the intern.” Hajime leaned back. “You’re not as subtle about it as you think you’re being.”

Hiro shrugged. “So? That’s what interns are for, right? And that Saihara kid is efficient. Gives me more time to work on aligning my chakras.”

“He’s only efficient because he’s got hero worship for all of the killing game survivors.” Hajime had only interacted with Shuichi a couple of times, and every time just ended up making Hajime feel both old and annoyed, the latter from the beyond borderline invasive questions about the Kamakura Project Shuichi would ask that Hajime only gave the most clipped of blunt answers to.

And then there was that one time Shuichi had seen the pictures of Nagito on Hajime’s desk and had asked him point-blank if he could tell him more about Servant.

Hajime had submitted an anonymous complaint to Makoto shortly after that.

The tall, pale grey spires of the Branch 14 office were in sight. Hajime watched them get larger the closer they got.

“You wanna grab lunch later?” asked Hiro. “Kyoko told me about this new deli that opened up a couple blocks down.”

“Yeah, that sounds alright.” Hajime sighed and closed his eyes.

Only eight hours and he could go home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully my off-the-cuff world building isn't getting too convoluted with the addition of one of the V3 kids. It seemed fitting. I still have a lot of mileage for this concept, so more to come. c: 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading. Your comments always make me absolutely delighted. Like, I know I don't reply much, but I can't stress how much they make my day. I read each one and reread them when I need a little confidence boost. I really can't thank you all enough.


	8. Formal Fundraising - (I) Nagito

Sometimes, when Nagito was home alone, the drone of the AC and the rumble of the dishwasher would make him feel an intense rush of loneliness that left him terrified.

Those were the days that he couldn’t do much. Showering was an unattainable feat. He’d let his hair clump up in greasy bits that he’d lazily claw at with his fingers. His mouth would feel pasted shut with gunk, but he couldn’t be bothered to brush his teeth. Putting on clothes wouldn’t help. He’d curl up on the couch and press his face against the backrest, arms cradled to his chest and knobby knees tucked up to his chin.

Oftentimes he would fall asleep and wake up to the concerned lilt of Hajime’s voice. He’d feel Hajime’s hands go for his neck first, to check for lumps. Always with his neck. Nagito couldn’t stand it.

Today, the rushing feeling was back. It started in his gut and radiated out to the rest of him with that empty, horrible melancholic despair that could worm itself right into his heart.

Hajime had been gone for a few hours, but Nagito wasn’t sure on the exact time. He didn’t always have his phone on him.

Every time it happened, every time Hajime had to wake him up at 6PM, Nagito felt awful. It made him feel like he didn’t contribute anything to his marriage outside of being a cute distraction from Hajime’s career, a house pet. He loathed it.

He tried to keep up with cleaning and laundry. A lot of the time he couldn’t even do that.

Not this time. Not today.

As soon as the feeling began to writhe and squirm, Nagito forced himself to get out of bed. His legs shook, but he made them move. He wouldn’t let himself stop.

Clothes were picked at random, just whatever he got his hands on first in the closet. What was the weather even like outside? He didn’t know, and realizing that him feel worse.

“You’ll find out,” he mumbled to himself. “You’re going to find out.”

Jeans and a thin long sleeved olive shirt to top off with a jacket was just the wardrobe for him. Nagito hated standing out. The reason he loved winter so much was that he could get away with wearing gloves. Too bad it was spring.

He would never tell anyone this, but sometimes he would get a little jealous that Hajime could just pop in a contact lens and magically be able to hide away the part of himself that he found ugly. How lucky.

Nagito didn’t stop moving. If he did, he’d snap like a brittle twig and crumple to the floor.

There were six books piled onto his nightstand, recent library finds. Nagito was reading all of them in tandem to keep things fresh, to keep himself from getting bored. 

The one stacked on top was a Flannery O’Connor collection. Nagito grabbed it along with his wallet.

He took up his phone last and glanced at the lock screen. It was 11AM. Good. It was enough time to get something done.

There was a text from Hajime.

_‘hey bud. if you’re not busy, can you call? Its nothing bad’_

Luckily, the message had only been sent a minute prior. Sometimes his talent came through for him.

Nagito pressed Hajime’s contact as he moved for the living room. As the phone rang, he started pacing. No way could he sit down. If he did, he wouldn’t get up.

After a few droning tones, Hajime’s voice broke through. “Hey, sorry. Just had to close my door real quick.” His spoke quickly, like he often did when he was wound up and anxious. “How’s your day going?”

“It’s been okay.” Nagito gently tossed his book on the sofa and watched it bounce against the cushion. “I was thinking of going to the park to read a little.”

“That sounds good. It’s pretty nice out. I mean, thank god it is. Hiro’s car got its AC busted,” Hajime sighed, “so I guess the windows are gonna stay rolled down for like, a month, or at least until he bothers to get it fixed. I keep telling him to go to Kazuichi’s shop, but he keeps blowing me off and saying that he ‘knows a guy’, whatever that means.”

Nagito felt himself smile for the first time that day. “Sounds rough. You know you can take Christine for a bit if you want to, right? I don’t need her every day.” Or any day, really, but saying something like that would just start up one of their long-standing arguments.

“Maybe, but it’s not that big of a deal right now.” Hajime took a deep breath. “So.” He stopped, like he had lost his own train of thought.

“…So?” Nagito prompted. He was still circuiting laps in the living room, but he’d have to stop soon. His legs were already tiring out. “Did something happen?”

“No, I mean, yeah? It’s just…” Hajime’s tone stuttered. He made a frustrated sound.

“Hajime, just go from the beginning.” Nagito considered himself to be terrible at being any kind of source of comfort, but he tried. He kept his voice calm. “What happened?”

“So.” Hajime took a few seconds before going on, centering himself. “I just got out this meeting with Naegi and Togami. Sorry, this is going to jump all over the place.”

“It’s okay, Haji. I’m following you.” Nagito wished he could be with Hajime in person. At least he could try and quell his husband’s anxiety through touch, anything other than just his disgusting croaky voice. “Keep going.”

“Right, so long story short: Naegi has been going on and on about how our branch is down on donations. I mean, they’ve been going down for a couple of years since local reconstruction stabilized. It makes sense, right? People feel like things are normal.”

“But Naegi kept on this long tirade about how ‘complacency leads us on a slippery path to despair’ or some shit, and that ‘our efforts are far from over’ so now he wants to organize this cheesy fundraiser gala thing? Like some formal donation drive slash conference event where we’ll do talks for the top benefactors? He wants it to be some ten-year anniversary thing since the Tragedy. I don’t know. I kind of tuned out when he started talking about catering.”

“Then he gave me this look.” Hajime finally paused for a second to catch his breath. “Naegi does this frustrating thing where you just know he’s about to drop a total bombshell, but he stops himself from saying it because he doesn’t want to piss you off. But the guy is so fucking bad at not wearing his heart on his sleeve, so he gets this scared mousey look and you just have to hang on until he decides to drop it.” He was well and truly rambling now.

Nagito went to the kitchen to sit down at the table. His legs felt like cement and at least the wooden chairs weren’t as comfortable. “What did he end up asking you?” He put the phone on speaker and laid his head down on the table, his cheek pressed against his arm.

“Right, sorry. So, he asked if I’d be willing to round up the Remnants to attend and get some of them to act as guest speakers.” Hajime’s laugh was both bitter and sarcastic. “God, what a shit show.”

“Well, his logic adds up. Nothing’s more hopeful to a rich philanthropist than seeing a group of reformed criminals.” Nagito chuckled. “Let alone former Ultimates.”

“Nags, think about it. Imagine any of us doing a speech in front of a bunch of old rich people.”

“Sonia would be perfect for it.”

“That’s what I thought too, but she’s a twenty-hour plane ride away and there’s some weird bullshit Novoselic holiday going on for the rest of the month. I asked and she said she’d be willing to do something on Zoom, but Naegi shot that down. He wants whoever speaks to be there in-person.” Hajime just sounded more exhausted the more he talked. “And I’d never in a million years even consider him, but that also eliminates Gundham as a possibility.”

Nagito thought. He drummed his fingertips against the table’s surface. “What about the Ultimate Imposter? They seem like they’d be good at something like that, and they could just use their Ryota disguise so there’d be no mix-up between them and Togami.”

“They were my second choice, but when I reached out they said they weren’t comfortable being put front and center. And like, yeah, that makes sense, but still.”

“Nekumaru?”

Hajime snorted. “Nah. He would treat the whole thing like a pep rally, and I don’t think that’s quite the vibe Naegi is looking for.”

“Is he just looking for us to recount what it was like?” asked Nagito. “The experience of going from despair to the side of hope?” If that was the case, then Nagito wouldn’t be of much use (per usual).

He had always been on the side of hope.

“I guess? He’s already roped me into talking about…” Hajime faded out. Nagito could swear that he heard him scowling. “You know.”

“I know,” Nagito whispered. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Hajime brushed onwards. “But yeah. Everyone else would be terrible, for one reason or another.”

Nagito could feel his eyelids getting heavy. He forced himself to stand and take the phone back to his ear. “What about Mahiru?”

“Mahiru?” Hajime said her name like he had somehow forgotten she had even existed. “Oh shit! Shit! You’re right! I mean, it’ll be awkward getting back in touch. She hasn’t been active in the group chat for months. She might not even reply to me.”

Nagito stumbled over his own feet in getting back to the living room. He sunk himself onto the sofa and brushed his book aside. “Maybe, but you should still try. She’d be a more sensible option than Nekumaru, no offense to him.” He was quickly losing that spark of energy that he had been trying to maintain, and that meant that the despair could just rush right back in. How unfortunate, and he was on such a good streak.

“Full offense to him, actually. Seriously, imagine him yelling about team spirit to a bunch of geriatrics.” Hajime made a mock shuddering sound. “I’d get axed for sure.”

“Mhm.” Nagito shut his eyes. He tucked himself against the arm rest. “I can imagine it,” he slurred.

“Nags?”

“Huh?”

He could hear the smile in Hajime’s voice. “I’m sorry I just talked your ear off there. You tired?”

Nagito wanted to just say the truth, that he was always tired.

Instead, he said “I just didn’t sleep that well last night.”

It was the creeping apathy. After all, why bother going outside to read when he could just stay in and read? Hajime told him it was nice out, so that eliminated the need to find out.

“Yeah?” Hajime was so soft, concern dripping at his words that made Nagito feel a mix of loved and sad. “Don’t push yourself. You took your midday stuff right? The Prednisone?”

“Of course.” It was a lie.

“Take a nap, okay? You’ll feel better.”

Nagito could have begged to differ. “Alright…”

“I have to get going anyway. Togami wants me to teach the intern how to use Excel formulas. Choke me with a spoon.”

“I’d rather not.” Nagito reached for the book. Good old Flannery O’Connor. There would be other days to delve into a despair laden world of western poverty. He held it at his side.

Hajime’s laugh was quiet, more of a chuff. “Alright, Nags. Love you. Eat something.”

O’Connor had once written a short story called “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” – It was one that Nagito had always found fascinating. And while the story itself was a hideously tragic little snapshot saturated in despair with only the tiniest flicker of hope, Nagito always found himself just gravitating to the title as its own piece.

Nagito wished he could be more. He had just gotten lucky with Hajime.

Hajime, on the other hand, certainly hadn’t.

Well, a good man is hard to find.

He fell asleep and woke up to the warm lull of Hajime’s voice and cool hands cupping his neck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone who has read O'Connor knows that Nagito would absolutely be a fan of hers. 
> 
> This is a three-part arc! Hopefully this is isn't too convoluted. Everything is still in chronological order. 
> 
> Comments and kudos are knitted right into my heart. Thank you all as always.


	9. Formal Fundraising - (II) Hajime

You could read into a lot about a person based on what their work area looked like.

Hajime had his own office, which on paper sounded impressive. There was some haughty pride to be had in being able to tell people that you had your own office. It had the same energy as owning a house or a hybrid car. Too bad he had cut contact with his parents years back or they might have been proud of him. For once.

Future Foundation’s Branch 14 headquarters had built its office spaces under the philosophy that less space equaled more productivity. Every office, even in the upper echelons of the directorial staff, was windowless and had the dimensions of a broom closet.

Hajime’s office only had the bare necessities for its fittings, with just a dash of personal touches and creature comforts to make it less hellish. He had his desk, one of those cheap fake wood vinyl ones that building managers buy wholesale, along with a couple of filing cabinets and a computer that was still running a version of Windows that had become obsolete five years ago. His chair squeaked if he leaned too far back into it.

Not having a window was probably the worst aspect of Hajime’s workspace. To keep himself from smashing his head into his desk, he had consulted Nagito on if there were any houseplants that could survive with just a florescent overhead light. Nagito had recommended something called a pothos, a weird looking stringy vine thing with thick glossy leaves.

Nagito gifted him an intrepid office companion, a ‘neon pothos’ christened as Robert Falcon Scott (Hajime had felt a little insulted when he Googled the name). It made its home on one of Hajime’s filing cabinets and got a cupful of lukewarm water every Friday afternoon.

The only other flairs to Hajime’s office space were his pictures. He kept a lot of them, both on his desk and tacked to his walls. A couple were just of Nagito, some were group shots Makoto had taken of everyone on Jabberwock, some were from Mahiru’s published shoots, one was of Kazuichi grinning in front of the grand opening of his auto shop, sentimental stuff like that.

It wasn’t much, but it made the space mildly bearable, unlike Makoto’s office.

Hajime despised Makoto’s office. It was about as utilitarian and stereotypical as you could imagine. He even had a number of those cringe-inducing ‘motivational’ posters framed on his walls, the ones with the bald eagles and the little nothing sayings like ‘it’s not the destination, it’s the journey’, shit like that. It made the space just scream ‘public school principal’s office’.

Fidgeting in the chair across from Makoto’s desk (which was made of actual mahogany, not vinyl, a directorial perk), Hajime crossed his legs and regarded Makoto with a perfectly practiced plastic smile. “I really don’t think that would be a good idea,” he said.

Makoto was typing something on his computer. He had been going into overdrive for the past few days doing conference prep. He didn’t even look at Hajime when he replied. “How come? Komaeda experienced the effects of Towa directly. He’d provide an interesting perspective on its current recovery efforts.”

Hajime balled his hands in his lap. “Most of the time he spent in Towa was under lock and key as a glorified babysitter. He was barely in the actual city at all. If you want something like that, why not get your sister to talk?”

“Komaru wasn’t a Remnant.” Makoto said this like it was reason enough in that capillary-bursting matter of fact tone of his.

“Once I get in touch with Mahiru and get her on-board that’ll give you two Remnant speakers including myself. That should be enough.” Hajime tried to will his shoulders to loosen up a little. “And as for Nagito, you didn’t hear this from me, but public speaking isn’t his strong suit.”

He was lying through his teeth, of course, but asking Nagito to talk in front of a big donor audience about the concept of hope and expect him to not get overzealous was just asking for the worst kind of trouble. Hajime couldn’t afford the risk.

Makoto glanced up from his computer. “I was hoping to get the itinerary finalized before the weekend.” He frowned. It looked more like a pout coming from him. “I guess I could just have the RSVP request email be more generalized, and then just follow-up with something more specific a week prior to the date.”

Hajime bit the inside of his cheek. It was a tried and true tactic to keeping his temper in check. “With all due respect, Naegi – “

“I know what you’re going to say.” Makoto stopped typing and straightened his posture. His spine audibly popped. “And you’re completely right. I should have been keeping a closer eye on the reports from finances. Heck, I could have realized the tenth anniversary was coming up a lot sooner regardless of our statements.” He sighed and rubbed his temple. “Everyone’s rushing a three-week deadline that should have been spread across a couple months, at least. And yeah, it’s my fault.”

Hajime was suddenly struck by just how old Makoto looked. It was weird. He was a year younger than him, he couldn’t be any older than twenty-seven, but he looked well into his thirties. From the baggy eyes, to the general paunchy physique of a typical sedentary desk worker, to a hairline that was just beginning to recede. Makoto Naegi was someone stress had not aged kindly.

“It’s okay,” Hajime said. Another lie. “We’ll make it work. I’ll try and get in touch with Mahiru before I leave.”

“No rush.” Makoto waved a hand and smiled. Hajime could see the deep indents of his laugh lines. “Just let me know by Monday, if you can. I’ll let you look over my draft before I send it off.”

“Sure.” Hajime took his cue to leave and stood. “I’ll probably head out with Hiro in about an hour, so I’ll see you Monday?”

Makoto didn’t look up from his computer. “Yup. Have a good weekend.”

Hajime shut the door behind him. His own office was a couple of hallways down, just past one of the break rooms and an open space filled with cubicles.

The walk made him think.

Did he look like Makoto? He had never really noticed the little things until they had started to build up. He knew he wasn’t as lithe as he used to be, thanks to a combination of not exercising beyond the bare minimum and his testosterone. Maybe there were other things, too, things beyond the webby stretch marks on his thighs and belly that Nagito somehow always noticed first and lavished with affirmations and attention.

Nagito had aged too, just in a different way. A scarier way. Frequent bouts of chemo over the years had permanently weathered him down to a thin nub. Thin. Everything about him was just thinner, more skeletal and gaunt. His hair had never really gotten its old luster back. It just hung around his face like a flossy curtain.

Hajime kept his pace and spared a glance at his phone. Speak of the devil.

_‘park is sunny today. v good weather for studying transcendentalism.’_

Well, at least he wouldn’t have to come home to getting a head rush of terror at finding his husband passed out on the couch again. Small favors. 

Hajime glanced at the hall (empty, thank god) and typed a reply.

_‘I don’t know what the hell that means but I love you so much and I’m so proud of you for being outside and I can’t wait to see you later’_

Years ago even considering saying things like that would have made Hajime wince himself to death. That was one good thing about aging. It made him less self-conscious about expressing himself.

His phone pinged back.

_‘!!!! such praise!!! wait I forgot how to do emoji I want to put a heart’_

Hajime tapped. He looked up. His door was in sight.

_‘It’s the little smiley face button next to the one that looks like a microphone’_

His notifications were inundated with hearts. Cute.

“Oh, Mr. Hinata, sir!”

Hajime looked up and suppressed a groan.

Somehow, in the span of a few seconds, the intern had materialized. Interns had a way of doing that.

Shuichi Saihara was probably the pluckiest of fresh intern fodder that Future Foundation had harvested in a while. He couldn’t have been older than sixteen, but he was on a fast track to getting scouted by upper management once his term was up. Apparently he had been working particularly well with Kyoko in the investigations department.

He looked up at Hajime with a kind of wide-eyed wonderment that made Hajime feel like he was getting dissected. It creeped him out a little every time.

Still, he could always pull up his tried and true artificial smile. “What’s up, Saihara?” he asked.

Shuichi kept his hands planted at his sides and inclined his head in a small bow. “I just wanted to wish you a fantastic weekend, and to thank you again for your Excel training on Wednesday. It was super helpful!” He spoke like he was an auctioneer, his words mushing together in a nervous frenzy.

“You have a good weekend yourself, and it’s no problem. That’s what we’re all here for.” Hajime could feel his brain get overtaken by the merciful ghost of corporate decency. “Excel can be a little tricky before you get a handle on it. If it keeps giving you trouble, just let me know.” He hoped it wouldn’t. Shuichi seemed bright enough.

“Yes, sir! See you later.” Shuichi awkwardly bobbed his head and skittered down the hall.

Hajime watched him dematerialize as quickly as he had appeared. Intern magic at work.

His office door was plain, though it had a lightly tinted window, presumably so people could see if he was inside or not. Hajime just always found it ironic that it was the only ‘window’ he had.

He had a nameplate mounted next to the door, an upper management perk. It had his full hyphenated name and title, ‘Hajime Komaeda-Hinata, Chief Information Officer’. Very fancy. It was the kind of title that you could get a lot of mileage out of at high school reunions.

Hajime slipped into his office and closed the door behind him. He didn’t want to have to scramble to shut it if he was somehow able to get Mahiru on the phone.

He glanced at the pothos plant when he went to sit at his desk. Captain Scott’s leaves were looking a little crispy at the edges. He’d have to remember to get him some water before leaving for the weekend.

Taking his phone back out, Hajime drafted a text to Mahiru.

‘ _Hey, Mahiru! Hope you’re doing well. I saw your recent shoot got published. It looks great! Are you free sometime this weekend to call and catch up? Something came up at work and I have a favor to ask. Take care.’_

A little stilted, but after months of silence, it kind of had to be. Hajime sent the text and immediately received an auto-reply.

_‘Sorry, I have Do Not Disturb While Driving on, so I won’t get your notification until I’ve reached my destination. If this is an emergency, call someone else.’_

Mahiru must have customized it. In any case, looks like he’d have to wait

Hajime had about an hour to kill before Hiro would be knocking on his door to drag them both home, maybe with an extra stop to that new health food store that had opened up. That sounded like a good idea. He could afford to splurge a little on one of those pre-prepped dinners for him and Nagito. A little Friday night extravagance. Maybe they could get a little wild and watch a late night movie.

The blare of his phone’s ringer wrenched him out of his headspace. Hajime looked at his phone. Mahiru was calling.

He swiped to answer. “Hey, Mahiru! I thought you were driving.”

There was a rush of white noise loud enough to make Hajime hold the phone further away from his ear, but Mahiru’s voice piped in loud and clear. “I am, but I’ve got Bluetooth on. You hear me okay?”

“You sound like you’re in a hurricane, but yeah. I can hear you.”

“Eh, it should get better once I’m off this four-lane. But what’s up? Everything good?” Mahiru spoke quickly and bluntly, but at the last question her voice tilts in an inquiring, concerned lilt that made Hajime cringe at the unspoken implication.

Because of course she was asking if Nagito was okay. Why else would Hajime text out of the blue?

“Everything’s fine,” said Hajime, a bit more curtly than he intended. He breezed on. “Are you going to be out of town at all this month?”

“I’m not planning on it, but I mean, you know how it is. Photoshoots can spring up. Why are you asking?”

Even after years of knowing her, Hajime still couldn’t help but feel intimidated by Mahiru sometimes. She had a no-nonsense quality he had always admired from a distance. “Well, I won’t get too in the weeds, but the branch office I’m at with Future Foundation is doing an event to ring in donations and Naegi wants a couple of Remnants to do talks along with some of the original killing game survivors, kind of like a reflective ‘where are they now?’ sort of thing. We’ve got a date set for three weeks out on a Friday, and – “

“Hajime.” Mahiru sharply cut him off.

“Huh?”

The windy roar of background noise had died down to a low rumble. Mahiru must had gotten off of the highway. “Listen to yourself,” she said, “you’re asking me to talk about the lowest point of my life in front of an audience. You realize that, right?”

Hajime didn’t really know what to say to that.

Even if he had, Mahiru kept on. “Look, Hajime, the only reason I called is because – “

“I know why,” Hajime cut in. He didn’t want to hear her say it. “You saw a text came from me and you thought it was about Nagito.”

“What else should I assume? It’s not like you ever contact me about anything else.”

Hajime bit the inside of his cheek. It wasn’t helping. “You know, for someone who hasn’t been active in the group chat…”

“I’ve been thinking about leaving it for like the past month, you know.” Mahiru kept her voice level. “I already have notifications turned off for it. Had them off for a while now. Like, why even bother, right?”

“Wait, what?” Hajime heard his voice crack. “But, Mahiru…”

But Mahiru didn’t stop. “I just got a therapist, you know? I mean, it only took me ten years I guess but better late than never, right? She asked me if I still considered everyone from Jabberwock as friends, and you know? I didn’t really know the answer to that. I mean, all we really do at the meet-ups is stew in old trauma.”

“That’s not true.”

Was it? Hajime tried to think about how their last reunion had gone. He could feel perspiration from his face rubbing onto his phone’s screen. He leaned forward in his chair, elbows resting on his desk.

“I’m in a blunt mood, if you couldn’t tell. Sorry? No, that’s a lie. I’m not sorry. This is all stuff I’ve been meaning to get off my chest to someone, and you’re here. So.” Mahiru let out a frustrated sigh. “Hajime, that group chat is like a never-ending AA meeting. It’s cathartic for the first three years, but after a decade? It’s just. I don’t know.” She broke off. “It’s just sad. It’s even sadder when Peko still keeps trying to message me privately over and over again and can’t get it through her thick skull that I’m always just going to leave her on read.”

“Look, just say you don’t want to do it, okay?” Hajime felt some of the anger creep in. He let it happen. “I’m calling you from work,” he added in. It was a useless thing to tack on. He wasn’t sure why he said it.

“Hajime, be honest with me. Why are you still with the Future Foundation?”

“You know why.” Hajime felt his teeth clench.

“No, I really don’t? If you’re going to say the health insurance, then I’d say that’s bullshit.”

Hajime’s entire body froze. He saw red and heard his mouth talk for him. The words just kind of poured out before he could think. “Fuck off, Koizumi. You want to know what it’s like to get affordable trans healthcare and be married to someone too sick to work? You want to know how high my deductible is?”

“Oh, yeah? That’s a lot of whining coming from Izuru Kamaku – “

Hajime hung up.

He didn’t even think. He watched himself fumble with his phone and wipe away the sweat before going into his contacts to block Mahiru’s number. It was a childish afterthought, but he couldn’t help it. His hands were shaking. His fingertips felt numb.

There was still forty minutes left of the workday.

Hajime didn’t know what else to do other than sit at his desk and, in Mahiru’s words, ‘stew’.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, this is probably gonna be more like five parts instead of three. Whoops. 
> 
> Thank you all so much again for your kind words and reading ;; Your support means so much to me! I've never done something this long, even if its fragmented. I'm having a ton of fun!
> 
> And apologies for any inconsistencies when it comes of Ultra Despair Girls... I haven't finished it and it's. A chore for me to play lol...


	10. Formal Fundraising - (III) Nagito

Nagito couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so motivated. He didn’t know if it was remembering to take his meds or if it was just a stroke of luck swinging in his favor. Likely the latter, but he wouldn’t question it. Didn’t his therapist tell him to try to not hyper fixate on his oscillating fortune? That had been right before she had asked him to talk about his ‘abnormal’ fear of airplanes.

The park was just a few acres of land with some benches dotted about. A dried up tributary cut through it like a scar. There were some gangly half-grown trees here and there. Oak, Nagito thought, or maybe pecan. Either way, they were several years from looking anywhere near impressive. The grass had a too-green carpet-like quality to it, like it had been rolled in and planted. It probably had been.

A decade later and municipal green spaces were only just beginning to crop back up in the city. Nagito had always found it a little sad that parks were never bundled up with high priority infrastructure groups. What could be more hopeful to a recovering survivor than a pocket of nature?

One of the perks to not having a job (“think about the plus side to it” his therapist had also said) was that the park was nearly always deserted when Nagito went. Maybe there would be a couple of older people, or a single parent with a small child, but never a crowd. It was just the way he liked it.

It was only a couple of blocks from the apartment, but he still drove, much to his chagrin and to Hajime’s delight. He only took the car because the walk would be too much for his pathetic legs and he’d rather save what little energy he had for the grass and not the sidewalk.

So he and Christine went and parked on a side street, just within skipping distance of a patch of green in a concrete jungle.

He had his e-reader loaded up with some epub copies of his favorite Thoreau essays. He could at least get through “Civil Disobedience” while he was out. It really depended on how hot it was. A big downside to being in a freshly minted park was the limited options for shade. And if there was one thing Nagito knew about himself, it was that his all-but-translucent skin would start to sizzle as soon as he stepped out the door.

To try and prevent sunburns, he wore a wide-brimmed sun hat and long sleeves. Sometimes he caught himself worrying about the hat being too feminine, even though he knew that was a silly thing to fret over. Hajime always told him that he looked handsome in it, but surely he was just saying that to spare his feelings.

Nagito’s favorite bench was one that faced the bank of the dried-up brook (sometimes it got a little trickle of running water after it rained, a rare treat). A scrubby bush hugged it on one side and provided a slight degree of concealment that he appreciated.

His legs were shaky when he sat down and perched the e-reader in his lap, but he had made it. He breathed a soft sigh and took out his phone to tap out a short message to Hajime.

_‘park is sunny today. v good weather for studying transcendentalism.’_

Nagito wished he had the dexterity to text faster. Hajime had shown him how to use a ‘speech to text’ feature, which was very kind of him, but the concept was so abhorrent that Nagito never bothered to try it out. So instead he went with what he was used to, holding his phone the tightest grip his prosthetic could manage while jabbing at the screen with an index finger. It worked alright enough, even if Nagito always had more to say than he could reasonably type.

Hajime replied almost immediately. What luck!

_‘I don’t know what the hell that means but I love you so much and I’m so proud of you for being outside and I can’t wait to see you later’_

Nagito couldn’t stop himself from making a noise that sounded like a cross between a hum and a sigh.

_‘!!!! such praise!!! wait I forgot how to do emoji I want to put a heart’_

Stupid of him to forget something like that. Hajime had showed him how before, but his brain fog made specific directions difficult to pin down and retain.

_‘It’s the little smiley face button next to the one that looks like a microphone’_

And yet Hajime was always just unquestioningly patient with him. It didn’t matter how many times Nagito couldn’t remember how to do something. Hajime would just go over it again, and again, no matter how many times it took, until it would finally stick.

Nagito replied with a dozen hearts in an aesthetically pleasing arrangement before turning to give some attention to Thoreau.

“On the Duty of Civil Disobedience” was an old favorite of Nagito’s. He had always been enamored with the romanticism of transcendental theory. Maybe it was a bit idealistic at times, but that was colonial-era American leftism at its core. What could be more hopeful?

In a fit of inspiration, he had once asked Hajime if they could skip a few years of filing their taxes as an act of protest against the government’s delayed recovery response to the Tragedy. Hajime had laughed before realizing that the request had been made in earnest. That resulted in him talking Nagito’s ear off about how important it was to him that they be able to afford a down payment on a house before they turned forty.

Nagito was well into reading before a flash of pink caught his eye. He looked up.

From across the dry tributary, Kazuichi was walking down one of the winding paths with someone, another date, in all likelihood. They were close together, their expressions unreadable from the distance. Kazuichi was slouched over, hands stuffed in the pockets of his coveralls. He had been working on growing a mullet for the past few years. Hajime often tried to humor him by saying that it looked nice. Nagito thought it was one of the most hideous things he had ever seen and never hesitated to say so to Kazuichi’s face.

He and Kazuichi didn’t have the best relationship. Hajime had given up on playing mediator for the both of them years ago and resigned himself to spending time with them on an individual basis.

Nagito squinted to try and get a closer look. Ha! Of course the person Kazuichi was with had long blonde hair. They probably had grey eyes, too. He snickered quietly to himself and watched as the two kept up a leisurely pace down the path.

It was then, with his eyes drawn to the right, that he saw a small mound on the creek bank. Most people would have assumed it was a piece of trash, a bit of discarded food wrapper nestled between tufts of grass.

Tilting the brim of his hat up, Nagito clicked off his e-reader and sat it on the bench. He stood and approached, leaning forward, bones cracking as he stooped to the ground.

He reached out and let his fingertips press against the mottled waxy skin of the baby bird. It must have hatched recently. Its eyes were still sealed shut, dome-shaped and still free from the collapse of decay. Its split corn kernel yellow beak was frozen open, a pinprick tongue peeking out.

Nagito gently touched its legs, curled and stiff against a swelling chest. Wings without feathers were truly grotesque. He felt the fleshy bony growths and marveled. Weak as he was, he knew that just the slightest pressure would shatter them to bits.

The body was warm, but whether from the sun or a ghost of life Nagito didn’t know. He never would, and not knowing made his head spin with adrenaline.

Gloves. Bags. They were stored in Christine for a reason, for when opportunity struck. Lady Luck was truly in his favor today.

“I’ll come back,” he whispered. “I’ll be right back.” He spoke so softly that he could barely hear himself, but the bird’s ears, giant cavities drilled into the sides of its head, surely they could pick up his voice.

Nagito nearly forgot his e-reader. He dropped it when he picked it up. Good thing it had a case.

His phone was buzzing in his pocket. Strange, but unimportant. It could wait.

It was a five-minute walk back to the car. Nagito nearly ran. He couldn’t remember the last time he had gone at that kind of pace.

He was sweating when he reached Christine, his mouth hung open in shameless panting. He fumbled with the keys and dove into the back seat.

At some point in the last month or so, Nagito had replaced the zip-locks with paper lunch bags. It had been a rookie mistake to go for plastic. It wasn’t breathable. Last thing you wanted was for whatever carcass you found to accumulate moisture and get soggy with rot.

Nagito seized a bag and a pair of gloves. He could hear his own overworked heart pumping in his ears and tried to will himself to slow down. Passing out in a public space would just be a nuisance to everyone, especially Hajime, who’d have to be given the burden of fetching him.

Trembling, Nagito put on the gloves as he made his way back to the bench, back to the bird. He left the e-reader in the car. He was sure that Thoreau would understand.

The bird was just as it had been left. Nagito kneeled and fumbled with the paper bag. His sun hat cast a shadow over the ground. Slowly, he reached out and slid his fingers under the body, careful to not peel or tear away the skin. His breath was heavy. His hands twitched.

“Uh, Nagito? You alright? You’re not like, stroking out or something, are ya?”

Nagito flinched but kept his hands steady. He didn’t move to look up. He knew that nasally twang anywhere. “Kazuichi, you’re taking time out of your date to express concern over trash like me? You’re truly selfless.” He forced a breathless laugh as he lifted the bird’s body from the ground, cradling it gently in pliant palm of his flesh and blood hand.

“Do you know them?” A small voice piped in from behind.

Nagito could hear Kazuichi scoff. “Hell no! I mean, barely. He’s a friend of a friend. Ignore him. He always talks like that.”

“Excellent observation, Kazuichi.” Nagito shoved the paper bag under his arm and cupped his prosthetic hand over his harvest. He moved to stand. His legs wouldn’t stop quaking as he turned and regarded Kazuichi’s date (who, predictably, had grey eyes) with a bright smile. “Hello! I don’t think we’ve met. I’m – “

“Hey, back off.” Kazuichi crossed his arms, too-sharp teeth drawn back in a scowl. “They got nothing to do with this. I only came over cause’ I saw you run like a bat out of a hell carrying a bunch of weird shit. Like, what’s with the gloves? And that hat? Dude, you look like a runaway grandma.”

Nagito kept his hands folded together to keep the bird hidden from sight. He needed to get it in the bag soon. No good for it to build up outside heat. “The hat is for shade. You know that skin cancer is a leading cause of death in this country outside of heart disease? And frankly, dealing with the cancer that I already have is enough of a hassle.”

“Oh my God.” Kazuichi’s date (Nagito wished he could have gotten a chance to ask for their name) gasped. “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

Kazuichi rolled his eyes. “He’s _fine_. Ignore him, seriously. He hasn’t had a flare-up of that shit in like, over a year now.” He looked at Nagito’s hands. “Please don’t tell me that you’re holding, like, a bomb or meth or whatever other creepy illegal crap you’re into these days.”

“No, it’s a bird.” Nagito lifted his prosthetic hand away and held out his prize. “See?”

“ _Jesus, man_! What the fuck!” Kazuichi reared back with a hiss. He flung up a hand as if to ward off something off. “Now you’re going around poking dead animals? Does Hajime know you’re doing this?!”

“I always thought that vulture culture was pretty neat,” his grey eyed date chimed in, smiling nervously. They played with the tassels of their oversized hoodie. “Sometimes I take a look at the posts on the subreddit for it.”

“Right?” Nagito grinned back at them. “I’m torn… with this I could either try and de-flesh it to keep the bones, or I could take a risk and try to preserve its structural integrity with resin. Either way, I’ll have to freeze it first to kill the bacteria.”

“Oh, just stop it, man. Please.” Kazuichi groaned. “I’ll yak if you don’t.”

Nagito ignored him and focused on his grey haired companion. “Food for thought, but I’ve known Kazuichi for, gosh, how long as it been?” He hummed in thought. “Ten years, going on eleven?” 

Grey Hair looked at each of them in surprise. “Wow, that’s a pretty long time to know someone.”

Kazuichi jumped to the defense, spluttering “I wouldn’t have had anything to do with him for all this time if my best bro hadn’t married him! I don’t know what the hell he sees in you, man.”

“Neither do I.” Nagito kept his focus on Grey Hair. “Regardless, I’ve seen Kazuichi meet up with a lot of people over the past decade. And when I haven’t been around, my _husband_ ,” he said the title with a practiced blend of condescension and braggartism that he just knew would get Kazuichi worked up, “Hajime, he’s met a lot of Kazuichi’s dates, too. More than me. And it’s funny how we’ve both noticed that the majority of them always seem to have long blonde hair and grey eyes.”

Kazuichi was doing an excellent impression of a tomato beaded over with condensation. His hands were balled into fists at his sides. Nagito wondered, not for the first time, if he was about to get decked in the face.

Grey Hair eyed Kazuichi with newfound caution. “You don’t say…”

“Oh, yeah.” Nagito slid the dead bird in his paper bag as he spoke. He had a feeling it was almost time for him to evacuate. “We all have a mutual friend from back in high school who looks exactly like you. We’ve seen Kaz date all kinds of people, men, women, GNC people, non-binary people… Long as they’ve got those two features – “

“Okay, okay! That’s it! We’re leaving!” Kazuichi broke out of his daze and turned on his heels. “I’ve done my duty to Hajime by making sure you weren’t croaking. So we’re leaving.” He turned to his date. “Right?”

“Well, actually…”

Nagito didn’t stick around to hear the rest. With Kazuichi sufficiently distracted and the bagged bird clutched in his hands he walked back to the car in a quick, sweaty escape.

Thank god for Christine’s AC. She may have been dented and crumply on the outside, but when it came to her inner workings, her cooling agents worked like a dream. Nagito slid into the driver’s side and clicked on the ignition. He turned the fans to full blast and felt the tension melt from his shoulders.

He checked the dashboard clock. Hajime would be leaving for home in a half hour. Just enough time for Nagito to get back home and prep his specimen. He gently sat the bag on the passenger seat.

His phone buzzed. Nagito clicked on his seat belt and slipped it out of his pocket. There were two messages in his notifications, the most recent being from Kazuichi.

‘ _fuck you. asshole. go stick your head in an oven’_

Nagito deleted it and took a closer look at the other text. It was from Mahiru, which was already strange enough. Mahiru didn’t even text him on his remission milestone days. He couldn’t even remember the last time she had spoken with him on an individual basis.

‘ _Hey, I know this is super boundary crossing of me. Sorry. I’ll be vague, but can you please tell Hajime to grow a spine and unblock me? Thanks. Glad to hear you’ve been doing ok. Call me sometime. Not right now. That’d be awkward. Give it a month or so.’_

“Huh.” Nagito read the text over again before tapping a reply. It felt weird to text someone other than Hajime.

_‘did something happen?’_

He pressed send and tucked the phone away. With the frigid AC blowing in his hair and a glance at his mirrors, he put the car in drive and started back home.

Whatever conversation Hajime had with Mahiru evidently hadn’t gone well, that was clear enough. On one hand, it wasn’t that surprising. Mahiru could be a little caustic sometimes. Combine that with Hajime’s general stubborn temper and it was only natural that sparks had the potential to fly.

Still, Hajime wasn’t really the type to go for outright blocking numbers. That was what Nagito found most concerning.

He wouldn’t text Hajime to ask if he was alright. That would definitely make things worse. Better to just let Hajime cool off and reach out on his own, or wait until he got back home. Whichever came first.

Nagito pulled into the apartment complex. His luck struck out of his favor with an inconvenient parking space, which wasn’t so bad. At least he didn’t have any heavy shopping bags to lug inside. He was already exhausted enough.

He made a beeline inside the complex, sparing a glance at his phone along the way. Mahiru had replied.

_‘wow. Didn’t expect you to answer but yeah. It wouldn’t be right for me to get into it. You’re the one married to him, right? Man up and talk to him yourself.’_

“Not really sure what else I expected.” Nagito turned into the hallway reached his and Hajime’s apartment door.

It clicked open. He had forgotten to lock it again. Stupid of him.

Thankfully, there weren’t any signs of a break-in. Not that he and Hajime really had much that warranted the risk. Maybe the TV? It was a hand-me-down from a thrift store, like every other piece of furniture they had.

Nagito made sure to switch the lock behind him. What Hajime didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

Their apartment’s layout was more narrow than it was wide. The entryway led directly into the kitchen, then into the living room, followed by the master bedroom/bathroom combo. There was an additional room that branched from the den, the so-called second bedroom of their two-bedroom apartment. Two years after moving in and they still hadn’t figured out on what to do with it, so it got designated as the ‘stuff’ room – glorified storage, really.

Hanging his hat on one of the coat hooks, Nagito went for the fridge first, praying that the freezer would have a least a margin of space to work with. He unlatched the door and closed his eyes at a satisfying burst of cold air.

He let the door hang open and peeked into the paper bag. The bird hadn’t been jostled to the point of damage. Its skin still looked perfectly unblemished. Excellent.

Nagito reached in the freezer and moved around a couple half-filled bags of frozen vegetables to make room on the upper shelf, right next to a half-empty tub of ice cream. Rolling the top of the bag shut, he slipped it inside and shut the door.

With that done and dusted, Nagito was struck by how flat-out exhausted he was. His limbs felt jellified. Maybe it’d be best to squeeze in some shut-eye before Hajime got home.

He checked the time on his phone. 5PM. Hajime and Hiro should be leaving work by now. Assuming they didn’t make any stops on the way back, it was usually a twenty-minute commute.

Hajime hadn’t texted him, which in of itself was concerning. Hajime always texted him right after he left Branch 14, even it was just a rushed ‘on my way’. It wasn’t something he ever really forgot to do.

Nagito thought for a moment before wobbling to the living room and all but collapsing on the sofa. He tapped out a short text and sent it off, feeling tired and boneless.

‘ _theyre not making you do OT on Friday are they? miss you’_

Hajime, thank goodness, replied with his usual reliable fleetness.

_‘No. On my way home. Might be late for a stop.’_

It was curt and short, which was a sure-fire sign that he was upset, but at least it was something. That was all Nagito needed.

Satisfied, he passed out on the couch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you live in the US, please don't be like Nagito and handle dead birds for your personal vulture culture shenanigans. General rule of thumb when it comes to birds is that they're illegal to harvest. I don't know about other countries, but yeah. Just don't take anything unless you're 150% certain it's OK to do so. 
> 
> But!!! Thank you so much for your continued reading, comments and kudos. ;3; Next part will likely take a bit longer, but I'm eager to see it through! Be well, and take care!

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes you just gotta punch out an idea and let it loose. Kudos and comments are always cherished. Love you all and thank you for reading


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